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Changing Pedagogies John Saltmarsh 331 When efforts emerge in higher education to change pedagogical practice, it is likely a sign that something is fundamentally wrong. In the current period of reform, which began in the late 1970s, efforts to change pedagogy have been fueled by two critical failures in higher education. One is a failure of teaching and learning in undergraduate education; the other a failure of higher education to fulfill its civic mission. Changes in pedagogy are reflected in experimentation with active and collaborative forms of teaching and learning tied to community-based public problem solving. New community-based, engaged pedagogies—most prominently, service-learning—connect structured student activities in communities with academic study, de-center the teacher as the singular authority of knowledge , incorporate a reflective teaching methodology, and shift the model of education from “banking” to “dialogue,” to use Freire’s distinction (1970/1994). To assert their civic relevance , higher education institutions strive to revive their founding missions, which in some dimension express the aim of serving American democracy by educating students for productive citizenship. Campuses encourage pedagogies of engagement to prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and values needed for democratic citizenship. “Changing pedagogies,” however, has a double meaning, because community-engaged pedagogies are also associated with efforts to transform higher education institutions. Changes in teaching and learning are not confined to alterations in classroom dynamics; they have wider institutional implications. They involve reconsideration of fundamental epistemological assumptions; they are aligned with disciplinary border-crossing in the curriculum; they are integrated seamlessly into faculty roles along with engaged research and engaged service; and they thrive in an institutional culture that changes in ways that support all these dimensions of engagement. Engaged pedagogy compels institutional J O H N S A L T M A R S H 332 change, and it is necessary to account for the institutional implications of changes in teaching and learning. Deep, pervasive institutional changes align across the institution in the emergence of an engaged campus. Indeed, the engaged campus is a relatively recent phenomenon in higher education that emerged, ironically, during the same period when higher education lost its image as a social institution fostering the public good and instead became widely perceived as a market-driven institution existing for the private economic benefit of upwardly mobile individuals—what William Sullivan calls “the default program of instrumental individualism” (2000, p. 21). For those of us in higher education who are interested in the multiple meanings of changed pedagogies, we are often involved in subversive activity. In changing teaching and learning we seek to teach the content knowledge of our disciplines more effectively, but we also seek to cross disciplinary boundaries. We seek to change our classrooms, but we also seek to change institutional structures and cultures that delegitimize new forms of knowledge creation and different ways of knowing. We view educational practice not as a commercialized , credentialized, commodified end in itself but as a means to the larger end of active participation in a diverse democratic society. Changing pedagogy changes everything . This chapter explores many of the dimensions of changing pedagogy by first describing the inner workings of changed teaching and learning through engaged pedagogy. It then conceptualizes the place of changed pedagogical practice within a larger framework of change and explores the deeper implications of changed pedagogies for students and community partners. Finally, it examines the kind of institutional change necessary for this pedagogy to thrive in higher education. Engaged Pedagogy Adopting and implementing changed pedagogy begins with the critical teaching and learning challenges facing higher education. One of these challenges is how to improve the quality of undergraduate education. The focus here is on developing and assessing effective educational practices that engage students in the learning process to develop higher-order thinking skills and improve learning outcomes. The second challenge relates to changing student demographics as increasing numbers of traditionally underrepresented students pursue higher education. The focus here is on developing educational practices that recognize different cognitive preferences and learning styles while educating all students effectively . Addressing these challenges begins with bringing the past twenty years’ worth of research in the cognitive sciences to bear on improving teaching and learning, and then incorporating that research into our thinking about pedagogy. Peter Ewell summarizes what the research reveals about “what we know about learning” (1997, pp. 3–4): 1. The Learner is not a “receptacle” of knowledge, but rather creates his or her learning actively and uniquely 2. Learning is...

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