LEARNING FROM CHANGE: Landmarks in Teaching and Learning
from Change Magazine (1969-1999), Deborah DeZure, editor

DEVELOPMENTS THAT CHANGED TEACHING AND LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Deborah DeZure

Sharing the Lessons Learned

In celebration of Change's 30th anniversary, Theodore Marchese, AAHE vice president and executive editor of Change, and John von Knorring, 
president of Stylus Publishing, conceived a project that would feature landmark articles from Change on teaching and learning in higher education, making them readily available to yet another generation of academics. The result is a collection I edited, Learning from Change: Landmarks in Teaching and Learning from Change Magazine (1969-1999). In addition to 160 Change articles (many of which are excerpts), there are introductory commentaries for each of 13 sections by experts in the field who clarify the context and the evolutionary and often dialectical nature of the conversations over time about dimensions of teaching and learning. These commentators also served as contributing editors, selecting the articles in their sections. (See box below for a list of sections and section editors.) The Foreword by Theodore Marchese and Introduction and Conclusions by myself frame the collection, providing an analysis of trends and unfinished agendas as we enter the 21st century.

What can we conclude about higher education from this study of Change magazine? During the past 30 years in higher education, significant changes have occurred in teaching and learning. These changes were propelled not by a single engine, but by many different developments acting as levers - shaping attitudes, creating opportunities, promoting shifts in policies and practices. Together, they provided the critical mass of momentum to enable higher education to make unprecedented strides.

Developments that Changed Teaching and Learning

There were many developments during the last 30 years that changed the world of higher education, particularly with regard to teaching and learning.

• Introduction of publications such as Change and the Chronicle of Higher Education, which provided a venue for discussion of issues, creating a common discourse about higher education and introducing new developments in teaching and learning

• Increased access to higher education through open admissions, affirmative action, outreach to adult learners and those who work full- and part-time

• Remedial and developmental education, academic support services, and programs to support students underprepared for college work

• New fields: black studies, women's studies, ethnic studies, global studies, environmental studies, interdisciplinary studies

• Models of living-learning communities, experimental colleges, residential colleges, and learning communities

• Changes in student values from social protest, to personal development, to vocationalism and consumerism, reflecting the values of the larger society

• Demographic shifts in the college population, particularly the fear and the reality of declining enrollments

• Curricular reform and revision of general education as well as emphasis on career preparation and the major

• A large and growing body of research on college teaching and learning

• Multiculturalism and a commitment to diversity

• New conceptions of knowledge, particularly the social construction of knowledge

• New instructional approaches rooted in "active" learning

• Introduction of writing across the curriculum

• National education reports, some of which shocked and provoked the nation, including A Nation at Risk (U.S. National Commission on 
  Excellence in Education, 1983), Involvement in Learning (National Institute of Education, 1984), and Integrity in the College Curriculum (Association of American Colleges, 1985)

• Market demands for graduates with skills in problem-solving, communications, working in teams, sensitivity to diversity, and ethical decision making

• Accreditation and state mandates for outcomes assessment and the growth of the assessment movement

• Renewed concern for a commitment to civic life

• Development of co-curricular community service and academic service-learning

• Increased complexity and difficulty of teaching in a sustained period of social and educational transition

• Emergence of "faculty development" and establishment of support programs and centers for college teaching and learning

• Introduction of systematic methods to evaluate teaching, including student evaluations of teaching, teaching portfolios, and peer review

• Paradigm shift from teaching to learning

• Reconsideration of the nature of faculty work, including changing roles and rewards, and the publication of Carnegie Foundation works Scholarship Reconsidered and Scholarship Assessed

• Developments in the "scholarship of teaching"

• Changes in the training and socialization of new faculty

• New technologies: media, distance learning, computers, the Internet and World Wide Web

• Competition from providers outside the academy, e.g., University of Phoenix

Each of these factors can be seen as both a cause and effect of the changes that occurred in teaching and learning during this period.  None of them is discrete, and the interactive effects are profound and ongoing. The list is not in strict chronological order; some of these developments emerged concurrently, albeit in different sectors of higher education, gaining momentum and significance at different rates. Others have had an ongoing impact that is periodically energized by innovations in the field, as in the case of new technologies.

All of these developments are explored in Learning from Change. Their elaboration is not my intent here. They are included to underscore the number and type of developments that contributed to the changes we see in higher education today. They affirm the degree to which significant changes were made possible by other shifts, some antecedent, some concurrent, some planned and proactive, some reactive to forces both within and outside the academy. They help to explain why, for example, many of the student-centered active-learning methods advocated 30 years ago are only now taking root and flourishing; there is readiness for these methods because a sufficient number of preconditions exist, enabling innovations to be adopted, assessed, rewarded, and sustained. Taken together, these developments represent a cultural shift, one that increasingly promotes and supports an active culture of teaching.

Deborah DeZure is coordinator of faculty programs and publications at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Contact her at ddezure@umich.edu.

Raritan Valley Community College
http://www.raritanval.edu/Innovative/learningfromchange.html
Created 6/18/2001 by LWB