Reno POD conference

I returned from the 2008 POD conference in Reno, Nevada on Sunday night and am pretty wiped today (Professional and Organizational Development Network – http://www.podnetwork.org/conferences/2008/index.htm). POD was crawling with academic ‘rock-stars’ such as Dee Fink, Milt Cox, and Terry Doyle; it was not quite like a celebrity sighting but it was pretty cool to rub elbows with these folks (I hope they aren’t insulted by this label; it’s actually meant as a compliment ).

I attended a brilliant interactive 4-hour workshop led by Terry Doyle of Ferris University on day #1. It would set the bar very high for the remainder of the conference. His workshop and title of his 2008 book “Helping Students Learn in a Learner-Centered Environment” focuses on the learner and why the biggest challenge to moving from teacher-centered learning to student-centered learning will be student resistance.

“Before entering higher education, most students’ learning experiences have been traditional and teacher-centered. Their teachers have typically controlled their learning, with students having had little say about what and how to learn. For many students, encountering a learner-centered environment will be new, possibly unsettling, and may even engender resistance and hostility”.

During the workshop Terry led us through a series of interactive exercises which helped to identify strategies for addressing resistance. I won’t summarize what I learned as it’s done much more artfully in the link embedded above but I will say that the approach he uses helps to move the social loafer to a more engaged and responsible learner.

The other piece to the puzzle is helping teachers understand and adopt a different role. Slow adoption is okay! It’s not really as daunting as it might first sound though. Simply asking teachers to reflect and be open to possibilities is not asking much and is what stellar teachers do on a regular basis.

I have great hope and am confident that we can help students and faculty see why the shift is necessary.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 7:27 am and is filed under change, student learning, teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.