Contextual educational development: Leveraging positionality to build trust locally

Session Time and Location

Date:
Fri, 8 Jun 2018
Time:
Time:
9:45am to 10:45am
Room: Room:
Oakwood B
Session Track
  • Faculty and Staff Professional Development
Session Format
  • Workshop

Speaker(s)

David GreenDeandra Little

When consulting with academics and administrators, educational developers essentially act as purveyors of “second-hand knowledge.” Frequently, we encourage colleagues to implement strategies they have not experienced or discovered first-hand, which they may doubt or question. How do we engender trust such that our “cognitive authority” (Wilson, 1983) helps improve student learning or promote institutional change?

In this workshop, we introduce a framework for understanding what components of our identities and power contribute to making us credible cognitive authorities, discuss how to demonstrate these in practice, and evaluate which aspects we might best highlight or tailor to our own local contexts.

  • Session References +

    Blackmore, P., & Blackwell, R. (2006). Strategic leadership in academic development. Studies in Higher Education, 31(3), 373–387.

    Cohen, M.A., & Dienhart, J. (2013). Moral and amoral conceptions of trust, with an application in organizational ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 112, 1–13.

    Fraser, K., & Ling, P. (2014). How academic is academic development? International Journal for Academic Development, 19(3), 226–241.

    Hilligos, B., & Rieh, S.Y. (2008). Developing a unifying framework of credibility assessment: Construct, heuristics, and interaction in context. Information Processing and Management, 44, 1467–1484.

    Whitchurch, C. (2013). Reconstructing identities in higher education: The rise of third space professionals. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Wilson, P. (1983). Second-hand knowledge: An inquiry into cognitive authority. Westport, CN: Greenwood.