Faculty Orientations Toward Instructional Reform

Issue 5 Some of the most promising developmental education innovations require that instructors significantly change their classroom practice. For example, instructors may be asked to teach to a more heterogeneous group of students, prepare students for statistics rather than algebra, or attend more explicitly to students’ nonacademic needs. Responsibility for cultivating such behavioral change usually falls on the leaders who are working to launch or scale a new approach to teaching and learning. Reform leaders often report that generating and sustaining change in classroom practice requires buy-in from faculty, and that obtaining buy-in is one of the most challenging aspects of reform implementation. Regardless of whether a college is launching a homegrown pilot or adopting a state-mandated policy at full scale, bringing colleagues on board and supporting them during the change process is essential to the success of an initiative. Without faculty members’ willingness and ability to reflect on their classroom practice and tailor their teaching strategies to a new curriculum or course structure, any effort at instructional improvement is vulnerable to lackluster implementation and possible derailment. Facilitating the reform process involves both convincing faculty members and other stakeholders that the innovation is legitimate and worthwhile and providing resources to bolster their confidence and success in carrying out the reform. Over the course of the Scaling Innovation project,1 we have conducted interviews with developmental education instructors and faculty leaders. We have identified among this group three orientations toward reform that consistently manifest when an innovation is introduced, regardless of its type: ready to act, ambivalent, and reluctant to change. In order to effectively engage all stakeholders in the process of reform, it is critical that leaders understand the perspectives that inform each of these three orientations. This issue of Inside Out delves into these broad categories to examine the diversity of perspectives within each and the implications for faculty members’ investment in instructional reform.