Teachers get upset with students who clamor for reductive answers to complex questions in their subject areas, failing to recognize that they often do the same when it comes to learning about teaching. For years, I got upset with faculty who did not seem to want what I, as a colleague who'd specialized in understanding teaching, was trying to share with them through the faculty development center. And yet, that seems precisely what I do each time we initiate a wonderful new program on improving teaching only to find it greeted with a decided lack of enthusiasm by our intended audience, sometimes even by those who requested it in the first place. For myself, then, and for my fellow faculty developers, let me lay out a few ideas about learning and motivation we need to keep in mind when designing or assessing programs for faculty. They are, finally, the same ideas faculty need to keep in mind when teaching students, ideas we might all benefit from remembering as we learn from our own experiences.
Faculty are no more alike in their learning styles than their students.
I know I have prompted many a faculty member to remember that a class of fifty students represents fifty different learning styles and backgrounds, and there's no reason to expect that one instructional strategy will fit every student. Even worse, when they did attend, not every attendee appreciated my devotion to active learning as a workshop strategy. She's going to make us figure it out for ourselves. Once it did sink in that faculty have as many different learning preferences as students, I felt somehow better. In fact, if I had looked at my own learning style I would have realized that even I don't choose to attend workshops on everything I need to learn about.