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The Academy of Process Educators IN the Faculty Guidebook:
Did you know?
...This group of educators evolved into ‘pioneers,’ hungry to establish solid roots. They wanted knowledge and practices that could evolve as others built upon what they had learned. They recognized the benefit of a shared community experience. The pioneers identified two tangible resources for building their new community. First, they wanted a place in which to publicly share their scholarly writings so that they could be assessed by peers and shared with others in order to expand the community. This resulted in development of the Faculty Guidebook, an publication that shares an increasing amount of new knowledge related to teaching and learning. The second resource that the pioneers are developing is the Academy of Process Educators. They hold a conference each summer that offers a space for networking, sharing research in the practices of teaching and learning while it is still in the formative stage, receiving peer assessment of new ideas, and sharing best practices.
The Academy of Process Educators has identified five roles that are viewed as primary for an educator. These are represented by the five nodes in the star diagram that appears on the front cover of the Faculty Guidebook. These roles provide an organizational framework for the sections in this book.
- Enhance Learning & Scholarship
An educator facilitates higher levels of learning (knowledge construction) using Bloom’s Taxonomy, emphasizing integrated performance and problem solving rather than memorization.
- Foster Learner Development
An educator mentors learners, helping them improve their learning performance by growing a set of transferable learning skills. The mentor assists this process using facilitation skills that include assessment, diagnosis, and intervention.
An educator encourages students to reflect and improve their self-assessment skills so that students can self-mentor their own growth.
- Invest in Professional Development
Educators must become master teachers by acquiring competencies that are identified as part of the desired repertoire. Examples of these include assessment, creating measures of effectiveness, using learning theory, creating enriched learning environments, designing instruction, conducting research, and modeling good team membership.
- Expand Institutional Effectiveness
As institutions are held ever more accountable for measuring and demonstrating their effectiveness, individual educators must become systems thinkers who contribute to the overall credibility of their institutions.
As these educational pioneers gained experience and confidence, they found themselves better able to create more self-sustaining settlements in their respective institutions. This can be seen in stronger connections with colleagues who are now actively seeking new ways of teaching and learning and are willing to invest energy in institutional reform. There is also a fresh openness to teaching and learning innovation among newly-hired colleagues. The growth of these communities of scholars promises long-term transformation in their respective institutions.
(from The Story of the Evolution of This Book and Its Intentions, Preface to the Faculty Guidebook) |
