Online Instructor Design Series

1. Online Instructor Design Series Servant ProfessorshipJuly 16, 2013 10 am CT - Collaborate Servant Professorship: A Paradigm Shift in the Role of the College Professor Dr. Janet McNellisDr. Dionne Rosser-Mims Description: To make a significant difference in their students’ lives professors must cast off their old role of sage on a stage and don the new role of servant professor– one who effectively supports, manages, and guides his or her students’ development. In this interactive session the facilitators will present the main principles of servant professorship and will work with the participants to develop effective ways of applying these principles to the on-line classroom.

2. Online Instructor Design Series Dr. McNellis / Dr. Rosser-Mims Overview Challengeswith Teaching Adult Learners Adult Learners Today Faculty Today Servant Professorship Putting Theory to Practice

3. Challenges with Teaching Adults What are the most pressing challenges you have encountered while teaching adults? What solutions have you tried?

4. Faculty Today "How would you describe the appropriate role of a college professor today?"

5. Adult Learners Today • Demographics • 75% of undergraduate students are 24 or older • Many TROY students are first-generation college students • Diverse student population—i.e., race, age, culture, economics, and profession • Working adults • Rise in underemployed/unemployed adult student population

6. Adult Learners Today, cont. • Learning Characteristics • Multiple learning styles and preferences • Different stages of self-directed learning • Prefer for learning to be practical and relevant to personal and professional life experiences • Learning Context • What else is going on in the student’s life? • Are Maslow’s lower-level needs being met?

7. Paradigmatic Shift Paradigmatic shift in view of the teacher-learner relationship. Servant Professor –one who effectivelysupports, manages, andguideshis or her students’ development • “The guidance is tailored towards each individual student’s highest priority needs” (Kitahara & Hannay, 2008, p. 6). Educators who are servant professorsbelieve it is an educator’s role to “integrate work, academics, and leadership to promote the personal and spiritual growth of others and ourselves” (Derrick & Jordan, 2009; Greenleaf, 1977).

8. Servant Leaders • Robert K. Greenleaf (1970) states: • “There is an important difference between someone who takes a “leader-first” versus someone who takes a “servant-first” perspective…The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.”

9. Servant Professor Role

10. Principles of Servant Professorship

11. Principle #1: Connectedness Connectedness • Between the professor and the learners. • Educator recognizes that both the learner and the professor play important roles in a student’s learning process and that their roles are not mutually exclusive. • The professor’s knowledge, expertise and leadership are needed to guide all student learning experiences.

12. Principle #1: Connectedness Can you provide an example of when you have experienced connectedness in your classroom or observed it in other classrooms?

13. Principle #2: Authentic Instruction Authentic instruction • High quality instruction that is meaningful and significant (Newmann, 1993). • “In a classroom environment that supports authentic learning, adult students are able to put new material to immediate use because it is taught in a manner that closely resembles the way it will be used in the real world” (Kirstein, Hinrichs, & Olswand, 2011, p. 1). • Authentic instruction promotes: • Higher-order thinking, • Depth of knowledge, • Connectedness to the world beyond the classroom, Substantive conversation, and • Social support for student achievement.

14. Principle #2: Authentic Instruction Can you provide an example of when you have experienced authenticinstructionin your classroom or observed it in other classrooms?

15. Principle #3: Empathy Empathy • Definition— “The intrapersonal realization of another’s plight that illuminates the potential consequences of one's own actions on the lives of others” (as cited in Hollingsworth, 2003, p. 146). • Why is empathy important in the classroom? • Students’ life experiences, problems, feelings enter the classroom • Work, school, and life balance challenges • Are we trained on how to act and react responsibly and compassionately towards others?

16. Principle #3: Empathy Can you provide an example of when you have experienced empathy in your classroom or observed it in other classrooms?

17. Putting Theory into Practice Using the principles of Servant Professorship, what other activities can we employ to address the challenges professors face when teaching adult learners?

18. Concluding Thoughts…

19. References Arreola, A. R., Theall, M., & Aleamoni, L. M. (2003). Beyond scholarship: Recognizing the multiple roles of the professoriate. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Chicago, IL. Retrieved from http://www.cccs.edu/Docs/dev-ed/Scholarship%20of%20Teaching%20and%20Learning.pdf Boyer, E. L. (1997). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Galbraith, M. W. (Ed). (2004). Adult learning methods: A guide for effective instruction. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company. Gear, M. R., Krumrei, E. J., & Pargament, K. I. (2009). Development of spiritually-sensitive intervention for college students experiencing spiritual struggles: Winding road. Journal of College & Character, X(4), 1-5. Retrieved April 22, 2009, from http://www.collegevalues.org/pdfs/winding_road.pdf Greenleaf, R. K. (1970/2012). The servant as leader. Quoted in The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, Inc. http://www.greenleaf.org/whatissl/

20. References, cont. Kasworm, C. E. (2003). Setting the state: Adults in higher education. New Direction for Student Services, 2003(102), 3-10. DOI: 10.1002/ss.83 Kirstein, K., Brommer, S., Cholewinska, A., Diamond, J., Flores, K., Gunhold, R., Kelley, G., & Minor, M. (2011). Authentic instruction and online delivery: Proven practices in higher education. In I. Candel Torres, L. Gómez Chova, & A. López Martínez (Eds.) Proceedings of the International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (pp. 5645-5652). Madrid, Spain: International Association of Technology Education and Development. Macfarlane, B. (2011). Professors as intellectual leaders: Formation, identity, and role. Studies in Higher Education, 36(1), 57-73. Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., Baumgartner, L. M. (Eds.). (2007). Embodied, spiritual, and narrative learning. In Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide (3rd edition) (pp. 189-207). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Tisdell, E. L. (2003). Exploring spirituality and culture in adult and higher education. San Francisco: The Jossey-Bass.