Teaching as a Social Practice: Implications for Faculty ... - Springer Link

Advances in Health Sciences Education 5: 151–162, 2000. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Reflections

Teaching as a Social Practice: Implications for Faculty Development MARCEL D’EON1 , VALERIE OVERGAARD2 and SHEILA RUTLEDGE HARDING3 1 College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Room A204, Health Sciences Building, 107 Wiggins Rd., Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7N 5E5 (E-mail: [email protected]); 2 Vancouver School Board, Vancouver, BC, Canada; 3 Faculty of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan,

Saskatoon, SK, Canada

Abstract. What we believe about the nature of teaching has important implications for faculty development. In this article we contrast three different beliefs about the nature of teaching and highlight the implications for faculty development. If teaching were merely a technical enterprise where well trained teachers delivered packaged lessons, a very directive style of faculty development might be appropriate. If teaching were primarily a craft where teachers made personal judgments daily about how and what to teach, then faculty development which encouraged individual reflection and artistry might be more suitable. This article advances the argument that teaching generally (and teaching in medical schools in particular) is best characterized as a type of social practice. Social practices (such as parenting, being polite, and going to university) are purposive, rational, moral, communal, and are identified by their activities. The communal aspect of teaching means, among other things, that the prevailing social norms of faculty at particular institutions of higher education have a large role to play in shaping the practice of teaching. This being the case, faculty development needs to provide teachers the opportunity to address and reshape these powerful social norms where necessary. Key words: faculty development, nature of teaching, social norms of teaching, social practice

Introduction Faculty development has been broadly defined to include any and all assistance to faculty to help them fulfill their many and varied roles (Bland et al., 1990). These roles would include but might not be limited to teacher, content expert, researcher, leader, and team member. Faculty development for such roles would naturally include instructional development, professional development, leadership development, and organizational development respectively (Irby, 1996). In this article, we focus on faculty development that targets the enhancement of teaching. The literature on faculty development for teaching enhancement lacks a clearly articulated understanding of the nature of teaching in medical schools. Reports about medical education have recommended appropriate faculty development

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(Association of American Medical Colleges, 1993) and research on faculty development has touched on the need for administrative (Irby, 1993) and collegial support (Seldin, 1990) as well as the incorporation of the principles of adult learning (Bland, 1980; Wilkerson and Irby, 1998). But the literature is silent on discussions of the nature of teaching and the implications for faculty development. A theoretical framework for faculty development needs to consider the nature of the activity it purports to serve. In this article we begin to fill that void by exploring the nature of teaching and considering what the implications for faculty development might be.

The Nature of Teaching: Essential Features Teaching as a practice is a complex, intellectually demanding activity. To properly understand the nature of teaching practice we must consider five essential features. One, the practice of teaching is purposive; in fact, the purposes of teaching largely define the practice. Two, any of a large number of behaviors and activities may qualify as teaching. Three, teaching is a rational enterprise and this is, in part, tied to its purposive nature. Four, teaching is a communal, as opposed to an individual enterprise. Five, the practice of teaching has a strong moral dimension. Teaching is purposive. Teaching is necessarily a purposive activity. We must teach something to someone with a purpose in mind which, generally speaking is to get someone to learn something, to understand something, to do something, or to appreciate something, and so on. The purposes that guide teaching in medical schools, moreover, are ultimately tied to expectations for the training and education of physicians related to our views of society and the role of the physician. Decisions about what to include in the curriculum, for example, will likely vary with different conceptions around these views. Witness, for example, the debates around the world surrounding problem-based learning (Vernon and Blake, 1993). Teaching involves a variety of activities. A second essential feature of teaching is that teaching can involve a range of very different activities. The activities are limited to the extent that they must have potential to achieve the purposes of the practice, and they ought to be appropriate in the given context. If the purpose is to have students learn surgery, then a teacher may engage students in a variety of activities. These might include lecturing about surgical facts, tutoring a problembased learning group, reviewing the physical findings and management plans in the care of surgical patients during bedside rounds, coaching students as they practice tying sutures, and quizzing students concerning surgical anatomy during an operative procedure, etc. Furthermore, each of these activities might involve quite different arrangements: working with large groups of students, with small groups in the operating room, with different materials, in different sequences, and so on.

TEACHING AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE

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Whether or not an activity or set of activities constitutes teaching depends largely on the teachers’ purpose for engaging in those activities. Teaching is a rational enterprise. Teachers ultimately ought to be able to justify their actions by providing relevant reasons for them in relation to purpose and context (Scheffler, 1965). If the purpose of teaching in a certain instance is to develop students’ abilities to create a differential diagnosis, the teacher generally believes that the activities he or she is undertaking have at least the potential to achieve that purpose. If a traditional medical curriculum introduces specific disease entities in succession and relative isolation, training in the generation of differential diagnoses may require additional practice to assist the students in discerning those features that are shared among certain diseases and those which are pathognomonic of particular diseases. It is the rationality of teaching, however, which insists on the possibility that an activity will lead to acquiring the targeted knowledge or abilities as the reason for choosing to proceed in one way instead of another. Rationality in teaching also means taking the context into consideration. It may be completely appropriate to ask medical students with a basic knowledge of pharmacology to review a list of common drugs and postulate which of those drugs might be contraindicated in people with asthma, diabetes, or hypertension. On the other hand, students may not derive much benefit from debating medical versus surgical management of angina until they have some foundational understanding of ischemic heart disease itself. Teaching is a communal enterprise. Teaching as a practice in medical schools cannot be understood merely by examining the individual actions of a teacher engaged in the practice or the collective individual actions of some or all of the teachers. There are many communities with interest in the actions of teachers in medical schools. The social context includes the geographic community of the school, the society as a whole, various ethnic and cultural communities within the larger society, the medical school community itself, as well as the community of faculty, both clinical and basic science. The purpose and activities of teaching are shaped by the values, beliefs, and norms of those communities. Indeed, the practice of teaching, in part, originates in the expectations and beliefs that reside in these various communities. Furthermore, the prevailing social norms of the faculty and the medical school as a whole have a role in shaping the practice of teaching. Teaching has an important moral dimension. Teaching in medical schools is a moral practice. Teachers have a role in developing the moral character of medical students consistent with professional ethical standards. Teachers are charged with the responsibility to both students and society for the training of the students and they have considerable authority in their roles. Teachers, basic science faculty included but especially clinical faculty, influence the moral development of medical students. In their personal behavior, their treatment of students and colleagues, the

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Table I. Teaching and Social Practices Features of . . . Social Practices Grow out of shared needs Common patterns of behavior Norms and social standards

Teaching Purposive, Rational, Moral Activities define teaching Norms and social standards Purposive, Rational, Communal, Moral

way they relate to and speak about patients, the types of examples they use in illustrations, and in other ways, teachers present models of morality and professional ethics from which students learn. Teachers play a significant role in developing their students’ moral character (Fullan, 1995). Faculty also have a responsibility to society to train competent doctors. Teaching the wrong things or failing to supervise appropriately are serious breaches of trust. Students themselves want the assurance that they are receiving appropriate training and trust their mentors that they are being properly prepared for professional practice. Furthermore, teachers exercise authority over students and are expected to do so ethically. The authority accorded a faculty member should not be abused, but rather used positively for the education and training of the students, not by indoctrinating or intimidating, and not by rewarding or punishing unfairly.

The “Social Practice” of Teaching Examining teaching from the context of a ‘social practice’ may provide us with fresh insights that will challenge the accepted ways of seeing the world of teaching with important implications for faculty development. First, we will look at what we mean by a social practice and then see how teaching falls into that category. A social practice needs to be understood in terms of purpose, context, and a complex array of norms. A social practice is, first, a form of activity that has grown out of common needs in a community to accomplish certain purposes. A system of etiquette and a means for communication serve to make human society more civil. Second, a social practice involves shared and mutually understood ways of behaving or acting. Third, the patterns of action are guided by a complex array or norms that we might call rules, standards, principles, precepts, and unwritten policies. These norms have authority (people comply willingly), and they are created and recreated in and through the interactions of those involved in the practice (Case, 1990; Selman, 1989; MacIntyre, 1984; Taylor, 1983). The norms provide reasons for the actions or behaviors of individuals. As in etiquette using particular forms of address, handshaking, and removing or wearing particular headwear are the behaviors that constitute the practice. The behaviors


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have meaning only in terms of the context of that particular community and purpose and can only be explained in relation to the guiding norms. The first feature of a social practice (they develop out of the common needs of the community) is clearly consistent with what has already been said about the purposive nature of teaching. Teaching is an activity that has grown out of the need in a community to pass on its knowledge, mores, and behaviors and in medical schools these are formulated as mission statements which include educational aims. To view teaching as a social practice is to acknowledge, first and foremost, the expectations society has for teaching, or in other words, the particular purposes of teaching. Table I summarizes how teaching is a social practice. The second feature of a social practice matches that aspect of teaching that involves common patterns of action or behavior. Explaining, showing, questioning, justifying, judging, correcting, and other typical activities of teaching are not simply characteristic of teaching. Rather, as activities directed toward helping people to learn, these characteristic activities are constitutive of the practice of teaching. The third feature of a social practice, norms and standards, is evident in the practice of teaching. A number of formally stipulated rules from government and professional associations mandate certain kinds of action in teaching. Social norms as well, by custom and social pressure, exert considerable authority in teaching behavior. Norms help to explain or provide reason in the minds of teachers for particular activities. This aspect of a social practice provides the greatest insights for understanding teaching. For example, in traditional medical education programs based heavily on lectures, it is usually expected that the teacher will talk, the students – sitting quietly in neatly defined rows – will listen, take notes, study hard, and pass exams of factual knowledge. A teacher’s behavior might be suspect (by faculty and students alike) if she encouraged unusual interaction between teacher and students or tried to trim down the amount of material that is taught by removing anything that was irrelevant. Comments often heard in the halls and coffee rooms about some courses that try to break away from the norm are ‘flakey’ and ‘Mickey Mouse.’ Similarly, in schools that have been highly committed to a problem-based learning model, traditional lectures are often viewed with suspicion and may be dismissed outright as having no role whatsoever. In either case, the actions could not be explained simply in terms of generalized principles of effective teaching nor in terms of a teacher’s intuitive understanding of the practice. Rather, such actions are guided by norms of the practice of teaching which are often implicit and institutionalized. An elaboration of this point is warranted here, as this is critical to our argument. In the course of their day-to-day activities, teachers may not be able to explain why they act in certain ways; they clearly are applying judgment in these circumstances, but they are not necessarily readily able to express reasons for the judgment. When asked, for example, why he decided to use a particular slide, a

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teacher may not be able immediately to provide a reason but might say, instead, it just felt right to do it. The view of teaching as being guided, at least in part, by a variety of norms provides one explanation of judgment. In this explanation of teaching practice, the norms of the practice provide some powerful grounds for judgment. If teachers are going to be in a position to justify their activities, criticize the practice, or teach someone about the practice, then they must be able to invoke and explain the appropriate rules, norms, or standards. Many departments and groups of teachers adhere to the tenet that lengthy, detailed handouts are a sign of good teaching and faculty produce thick handouts for their students. Someone who breaks with this practice might be scorned either formally or informally. Those accepted norms provide the grounds for judging what is good teaching practice in the daily crush of the job. To a large extent those norms integrate its purposive and communal nature as well as its rational, social, and moral aspects.

Dominant (Mis)Conceptions of Teaching Each of the two dominant conceptions of the nature of teaching underlying current discussions about the practice often tends to neglect some of the features we have just described and is therefore incomplete and misleading. By focusing on only one or two of the essential features of teaching, each conception misrepresents and distorts the nature and practice of teaching. These distortions have serious implications for the faculty development offered to teachers to improve their practice. Conceiving of teaching as a kind of “social practice” emphasizing the five essential features that we have outlined above, provides a more comprehensive view of the nature of teaching. Ultimately, this ought to lead to more effective faculty development and eventually improved teaching and learning. Teaching conceived as a technical enterprise. Technical enterprises are identified by three main characteristics: preoccupation with means rather than ends, study and transmission of generalizable principles, and valuing effectiveness and efficiency. Since technical enterprises are centrally preoccupied with means rather than ends, questions about what would constitute a desirable end are rarely asked. Unfortunately, the generalizable principles or laws usually involve relatively simple applications (Clark and Peterson, 1986; Olson, 1992). Because effectiveness or efficiency are valued, other standards, moral ones for example, are typically of secondary importance or of no concern at all (Porter and Brophy, 1988). Thinking of teaching as a technical enterprise neglects certain essential features of the nature of teaching. An example of this conception of teaching operating in medical schools is the ‘TIPS’ (Teaching Improvement Project Systems) workshop. TIPS is an intensive two (or three) day introductory teaching workshop for health science faculty focusing on the development of specific teaching behaviors that are believed to result


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in effective learning by students (Craig, 1988). The unspoken assumption is that effective teaching in any setting consists of the systematic and proficient application of a variety of teaching tools or techniques that can themselves be taught. Placing one’s faith in the TIPS course alone to reform teaching at a medical school is to buy into the notion that teaching is a technical enterprise. Teaching conceived as a craft. A rival, though equally popular, view of teaching challenges the assumptions of those who see teaching as a technical practice by conceiving it in terms of a craft or art (Clandinin, 1986). Discussions involving this conception focus primarily on the nature of knowledge in the practice of teaching, comparing this to knowledge as it is acquired and used in craft. Researchers claim that teachers, like physicians (Bordage, 1994), acquire knowledge about their practice, not by learning general conclusions from systematic studies, but by thoughtfully engaging in the practice in the particular context. Those who see teaching as craft refer variously to the tacit, intuitive, or inarticulate way teachers seem to know how to proceed in the day-to-day activities of teaching (Schon, 1987; Argyris, 1993). Those who see teaching as a craft may then focus on an apprentice or mentorship approach to improvement of teaching. There is a danger in this way of thinking about teaching. The individual teacher (mentor or novice) may be seen to be in a position to establish unique educational ends and to change them at will. This is rarely the case as the norms and expectations of teaching, including goals, are established in communities and through the social interaction of those engaged in the practice. The norms of the practice of teaching, its communal nature, make individual ‘maverick’ style change difficult to initiate and even more difficult to maintain (Little, 1981; Smylie, 1985)

Implications for Faculty Development Programs that emphasize technique generally attempt to introduce new activities to teachers from a variety of contexts, levels, and subject areas in isolated sessions. Examples of these (expert-presenter and skill-training) like the TIPS course are found in Table II adapted from Gall and Vojtek (1994). Some faculty development programs follow a craft model: action research, development projects, and coaching within the clinical supervision framework. Other faculty development programs incorporate elements of both technical enterprise and craft: organizationdevelopment and change process. These approaches are necessarily incomplete because they do not account for the essential features of teaching, particularly its purposive nature and its norm-guided actions. None of the current and popular models of faculty development are founded on the notion of teaching as a social practice. Faculty development which accounted for the nature of teaching as we have described, which proceeded from the basis of teaching as a social practice, would extend, not necessarily replace, the kinds of faculty development programs and

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Table II. Seven Staff Development Models and Corresponding Objectives Staff development model

Key features of the model

1. Expert-presenter about a topic

Teachers listen to an expert teachers’ knowledge.

2. Clinical-supervision

A supervisor, mentor or coach works with the to identify the teacher’s goals and concerns, collects appropriate classroom data, reviews data and decisions with the teacher.

3. Skill-training

Expert trainer presents theory behind the skills, explains and models the skills. Teacher practices skills and receives feedback, is coached to promote transfer of training to own classroom.

4. Development/teachers improvement project

Teachers solve problems and develop an instructional product. Teachers learn in the process of working on the project and have something to use when done.

5. Action-research

Teachers, alone or with assistance, do research in their own work setting to answer their questions or test new ideas.

6. Organizationdevelopment

An organization-development specialist helps teachers and other staff to diagnose strengths and weaknesses of their school or system, develop a plan of action, implement the plan, and evaluate its success.

Corresponding objectives ∗ Development of lecture and

understanding. ∗ Development

of teachers’ instructional teacher skills and strategies.

∗ Development

of teachers’ instructional skills and strategies. ∗ Development of teachers’ ability to improve students’ academic achievement. ∗ Development of teachers’ ability to develop and implement curriculum. ∗ Development of teachers’ ability to reflect and make sound judgments. ∗ Development

of teachers’ knowledge and skills. ∗ Production of resources which teachers can use in instruction.

∗ Changing

teachers’ attitudes. ∗ Development of teachers’ ability to engage in school restructuring. ∗ Changing

teachers’ attitudes. ∗ Development of teachers’ ability to develop and implement curriculum.

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Table II. Continued Staff development model

Key features of the model

7. Change-process

Staff-developers help teachers make a decision to adopt a system wide innovation, put the innovation into action and then institutionalize it.

Corresponding objectives ∗ Development

of teachers’ ability to engage in school restructuring.

activities which we now have. Faculty development for teaching as a social practice would include many of the same activities that we would recognize as faculty development. The shift would occur primarily by involving groups of teachers in thinking about their practice and its purposes. Groups of teachers would be the unit of faculty development because it is groups that hold the norms that largely regulate the practice of teaching. Teachers would be encouraged to help discover and rationally recreate those norms that provide the standards of the practice. Teachers would give thoughtful attention to those norms that undergird a particular action as in answering the following question: “Why do we do what we do in those situations?” Once norms are explicit, they can be explained, justified, or changed and in changing the norms, one changes the practice. Given that activities of teaching are constructed or recreated in the course of practice, teachers from the same college or department (faculty who teach with the same norms influencing their practice), should engage in faculty development together. One of the most contentious issues with which faculty struggle concerns how much material to give students to learn. Time after time faculty wonder how they can ‘cover’ so much material in so little time. The problem is not one of technique (How can I magically get all this information into the heads of students in the time allotted?) nor one of judgment (How do I know, while I am teaching, when I have filled their heads with enough information?). The problem is one of social expectations (I am expected to teach this much!) and norms (This is the way that I was taught and this is what most other people seem to be doing.) and purpose (What is it that I am supposed to be doing anyway?). The faculty development solution to this issue might be different depending on how teaching was conceived. If teaching were thought of as a technical enterprise, faculty developers might try to train faculty in some interesting ways to get the points across efficiently. If teaching were thought of as a craft, then faculty developers might find a mentor and encourage the teacher to reflect on what he or she was doing in the classroom. However, if the faculty developer were thinking of teaching as a social practice then the approach might be to have teachers in several related areas explore the purposes of teaching together and discover why they felt pressured to teach so much and what they might be able to do differently. If teachers are trying to transmit too much information because they feel they are supposed to

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teach that way, no amount of technique or individual reflection is going to help them deal with the peer pressure and social norms that they are experiencing. Only treating teaching as a social practice will help teachers to overcome unworkable standards of practice and redefine new expectations. Faculty development should not be an isolated event in the lives of teachers (as is currently often the case because of limited understanding of the nature of the practice). It would be an ongoing matter of groups of teachers spending time questioning and clarifying the purpose of the teaching that they do, and explaining, criticizing and justifying activities in the light of a renewed understanding of purpose and context. One teacher’s performance would improve, not only because she had learned a new strategy, but as a result of her critical and collegial examination and understanding of a wider range of norms that influence what she does in the classroom. Teaching practice would improve but not as a result of prescriptive rules being invoked to mandate certain actions. Teaching would improve because teachers better understand their purpose and the activities that achieve it and are able to reform the normative standards of the practice. To reiterate, rules and norms, as social constructions, can be changed, but only when they become subject to collective criticism and redevelopment. For example, if several pharmacology teachers were to begin to inquire into their practice they might see from studying the results of students’ work a general lack of ability to analyze drug reactions, or to apply basic mechanisms of action across drug groups. The teachers might begin to question their own practice. They might realize from discussion, observing each others’ activities, viewing tapes of their own teaching, and so on, that they have implicitly understood teaching as the transmission of knowledge from teacher to the student, with the major purpose being accuracy of recall. They might begin to question whether the development of application and problem-solving skills (a generally shared goal of medical education) is being hampered by their focus on recall of facts. It is likely that they would question some of the teaching activities in which they had involved students and the evaluation practices that they had used as well as the norms that guide the selection of those activities. Rather than “covering the material” they might begin to see their practice in terms of different activities such as posing thoughtful questions and focusing on the provision of reasons for positions taken in relationship to a clinical case or scenario. Ultimately, the result of their theorizing about teaching would be to arrive at a different collective understanding of their teaching and thus the practice would be more likely to change.

Summary To advance our understanding of effective faculty development we need to be guided by a full understanding of the nature of teaching. Teaching is purposive, rational, moral, communal, and is identified by its activities. These elements of teaching are consistent with social practices. It is more worthwhile to think about


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teaching as a social practice than as a technical enterprise or as a craft. Much faculty development is based on a belief that teaching is either a technical enterprise or a craft. Faculty development for teaching enhancement would be improved if it were instead founded on the understanding of teaching as a social practice. Faculty development programs would then incorporate opportunities for groups of teachers, preferably those from the same work group, to examine their practice and the norms that govern it. Teachers would be given the opportunity in faculty development sessions to think deeply about the purpose of teaching, the activities that are being used to achieve such purposes, the social dimension of their practice, and its underlying norms. These changes can be achieved through adjustments to existing faculty development programs by providing opportunities for teachers to come together to theorize about their teaching.

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