ABSTRACT

While educators and policymakers increasingly link the ‘21^st-century’ skills of communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and self-directed learning to graduate success in important high-technology industries, few studies look at how technological college faculty – who are expected to help instil these important skills in students – learn to better teach such skills. Faculty development research shows that feedback- and reflection-oriented social learning improves instruction, but has not typically investigated the full scope of beneficial teaching-focused interactions, formal and informal, in which faculty engage. Using a social network perspective, which focuses on the empirical contours of relationships across settings, this mixed methods study explores (1) the people with whom technological faculty discuss teaching, referred to as ‘teaching-focused personal networks;’ (2) the comparative contours of these networks by faculty development involvement, teaching experience, institution type, and discipline; and (3) how, if at all, faculty believe these networks influence their communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and self-directed learning instruction. Survey data (n = 192) indicate that most respondents discuss teaching with a core personal network of about four contacts, commonly institutional colleagues, around once a month. Data also show that network size, diversity, and strength – measures connected to actionable, relationship-based information and support, or ‘social capital’ – are broadly similar among faculty of varying subgroups, with one exception: respondents reporting involvement in in-depth faculty development programming have larger and stronger networks. Qualitative results show that most faculty reporting teaching-focused personal networks perceived them to benefit their teaching of communication, teamwork, problem-solving, or self-directed learning through support, reflection, feedback, and sharing new ideas.

摘要

虽然教育工作者和政策制定者越来越多地将 21^世纪世纪的沟通、团队合作、解决问题和自主学习的技能以在重要的高科技行业取得成功，很少有研究关注技术学院的教职员工（他们应该帮助向学生灌输这些重要技能）如何学习更好地教授这些技能。教师发展研究表明，以反馈和反思为导向的社会学习改进了教学，但通常没有调查教师参与的所有有益的以教学为中心的互动，正式和非正式的互动。使用关注跨环境关系的经验轮廓的社交网络视角，这项混合方法研究探索了 (1) 技术教师与之讨论教学的人，称为“以教学为中心的个人网络”；' (2) 这些网络在教师发展参与、教学经验、机构类型和学科方面的比较轮廓；(3) 教职员工认为这些网络如何影响他们的沟通、团队合作、解决问题和自主学习教学，如果有的话。调查数据（n = 192）表明，大多数受访者与大约每月一次的大约四个联系人（通常是机构同事）的核心个人网络讨论教学。数据还表明，网络规模、多样性和实力——与可操作的、基于关系的信息和支持或“社会资本”相关的衡量标准——在不同亚组的教职员工之间大致相似，但有一个例外：受访者报告深入参与教师发展规划拥有更大更强的网络。