My faculty is composed of mostly adjuncts, some who work full-time, some who work a few part-time jobs, and some who are at-home parents, all of whom care deeply about their students. Two of the instructors in my department have taught there for 40 years and the rest are a mix of demographics and years taught.  All of the instructor have masters degrees, yet few are formally trained as teachers; they teach a mix of online, hybrid, and face-to-face.  Just like our students, our faculty have lives outside the classroom that are complex:  most have children and are perhaps taking care of parents. So, getting people together is a challenge:  even virtually collaborating sometimes has snags.

According to Tony Wagner (2013), one of the first things I need to do is communicate the need for change to numerous, varied audiences.  The need for change should be something the audience can understand and connect emotionally to. This is going to be one of the most difficult parts (Wagner, 2013).  While some of the HUM instructors are open to changes in perception about tools (seeing BYOD as an advantage instead of a distraction), many teachers are not open to change about tools or even perceptions of students.  Even though one of the first things an instructor should let go of when working in an open-admissions university is the idea that students should be at a certain level (“These are college students. I *shouldn’t* have to teach them executive skills.”), many instructors refuse to let go of the preconceptions about students.

This is also a challenge, and one I wish I could meet with Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary (1989). Rose (1989) made me see underprepared students in a whole new way.  These students can grow and want to grow, but they lack basic tools that many of us take for granted.  Rose writes of what it is to be a son of immigrants who grows up without books in the house who is eventually sent to an elite private high school.  There, he runs into a passionate teacher who makes the difference for Rose. Rose, however, feels his own shortcomings acutely and lives in terror until he know the tools to succeed. Interwoven into the narrative of Rose’s life are statistical studies of how writing relates to thinking made visible (NRC, 2000; Rose, 1989)

To make thinking visible in students, instructors needs numerous tools, resources, and attitudes. All of the tools and resources that instructors would use to make their students more successful need to be highly accessible. Part of the conversation with the instructors would involve tools (Wikis, Collaborate, and Zotero) and some of the conversation would be about philosophy and thinking of the students are future employees.  In terms of philosophy, I think the discussion needs to start with some constructivism, some growth mind-set, some rigor and a little Mike Rose. All of the instructors that I work with already have constructivism as a mental process; that is, they are always learning and adding the new to the old.  However, almost none of these instructors would describe themselves as “constructivists.” Building a bridge from the theoretical to their practical experience would be an important part of gaining buy-in from instructors.

Another theoretical framework that all of the faculty could relate to would be “The Mindset Theory” (Dweck, 2010). None of us want to think about ourselves as “fixed,” but sometimes we are unless we are given an alternative way to think about it. By introducing the idea of “growth” and talking about specific tools being necessary for growth, I empower instructors to make a palpable difference for their students.  Every teacher I’ve ever talked to always says her favorite part of teaching is the “a-ha! moment” when a student gets it.  What if really concrete scaffolding introduced multiple “a-ha! moments”?

All of the different domains of a well-educated, global, 21st century citizen.

A good tool in the discussion of students as future employees would be Framework for 21st Century Learning (Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2011).  At the core of the learning are literacy, computation, and communication, all within a 21st century context.  Then there is an upper level of learning concepts that include executive skills, technology skills, and then the “Four Cs: critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration” (Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2011).   A curriculum that includes executive skill remediation, BYOD for both individual and collaborative work, and that asks students to ask critical questions about online resources would go towards meeting these 21st century learning competencies.

In terms of learning about the tools, information could be made more accessible for the both instructors and students by creating both video and print resources.  Another essential part of this project would be to work with Ed Tech to help build a robust set of resources for teachers, in addition to live and virtual meetings to discuss the resources available for the class.  Another tool to give to instructors is the pre and post test:  I think it would be a huge confidence builder for instructors to know exactly where a student stood skill-wise and was able to offer resources in response. In addition, having the post test would also tell instructors (and me) what students needed more help in.

It would be a slow roll out for the classes:  1-2 instructors per semester.  As the roll out in classes happened, the design of the classes would have to be truly collaborative between the face-to-face and online instructors. There would have to be resources (not just on the mechanics of the class, but on the content of the class) that functioned for both types on instructors.

All of the mechanics of the process would be easier than the part of the process that needs to underlie everything else:  school culture.  According to Hoy and Hoy (2013), there needs to be “academic optimism.” This is the feeling in a school where employees are hopeful that they can achieve positive change in student learning and outcomes.  There is respect for individual differences and the work is both individual and collaborative.  People also look at a multitude of sources when considering potential solutions: “Scientific research, experience, trial and error, and clinical research where teachers and supervisors work things out together” (Hoy & Hoy, 2013)

A big obstacle towards “academic optimism” is that I can’t pay instructors for professional development. If I could pay them, then I think there would be more willing participants in change agency. People would feel empowered, more willing to share really good resources or lessons, and more willing to read some of the research articles I send them.  In lieu of having some budget, I am going to keep being optimistic and I’m going to keep trying to think of ways around this problem. (Even though I included a budget in another section.)

My other big obstacle is that I don’t know how to migrate individual work out of Google into Blackboard.  We cannot use Google Docs for Grade Entry. In the case of in-class group work, it would be fairly easy for instructors to look at the group Google docs, add feedback, and then enter a grade in Blackboard.  For individual student work, it would be more difficult to get work out of Google docs, onto some memory (hard drive or thumb drive), and then into Blackboard.  At that point, the students who only had a phone or tablet would be at a disadvantage and have to use PCs at school or at a library to enter their work into Blackboard.  Then, some of accessibility to technology issues would arise again.  Also, as far as I know, not much of Blackboard is adapted for UDL.  UDL has never been mentioned in discussion of UDL.  It is a topic to explore. Having to transfer individual documents into Blackboard by the instructor would also be disadvantageous.  Instructors would never buy into a process that created more work for them.