Steady as she goes....

...is the thought to comes to mind as I reflect on course work that's been completed during the past few years. What is the experience of the instructor as they are faced with facilitating learning amongst a group of experienced professionals in their content area? Although this thought applies to numerous content areas, I have to focus on the area of learning in this blog entry.

Think about it, an instructor for a pedagogy course has to deal with 10 different 'doctors' of pedagogy. From what I've seen through course work experiences, educators tend to come to the classroom as quite 'meta' compared to a programmer or a marketing rep. So as students of learning, these folks have been thinking about learning for years. They've analyzed their own learning styles, those of their students and of others who don't even know them. Now, in the midst of their own academic work on learning, they bring years of cognition to their own classroom of study.

How does the instructor of these experienced students deal with these educator-student expectations? The expectations of these students with regard to instruction is much higher than the pedagogy expectations of a group in a marketing class or a programming course. And the expectations of these same students, I would suspect, is higher when they participate in any coursework they complete because learning is the frame of reference through which they experience their world.

Their expectations however, would differ from those of experienced doctors being taught by a doctor or students of marketing being taught by a marketing guru. In those cases, the students may question the content being presented and have experience to support or disprove the notions being presented, but the delivery of the content will not be analyzed to the extent that the educator-students of pedagogy will reach.

So for me, as I think about the experience and characteristics of an instructor of pedagogy, stability and self-assurance are two that I think are critical to the instructor. Being able to both take and provide feedback is essential, along with the strength of self to lead, what I imagine would be a group of students would have been required to be leaders everyday in their profession. Not an easy role to fill, but fortunately I've seen it done so eloquently.

It's been interesting to both participate in and evaluate learning experiences from a pedagogical perspective. I've realized some of the complexities of learning and been able to be more introspective about my own learning. At the same time, I hope I am developing a keener sense of recognition of indicators students send to trigger changes in the strategies I use to facilitate student learning.

I feel fortunate to have been through several courses related to Pedagogy and experienced the role modeling that I have. Now how long will it take me to develop the skills related to what it takes to mirror what I've learned.