I read a terrific paper this week by Jennifer McCrickerd (Drake University) called, “Understanding and Reducing Faculty Reluctance to Improve Teaching.” In it, the author lists 6 reasons why some post-secondary (#highered) instructors are not interested in improving the way they teach:

1. instructors’ self-identification as members of a discipline (sociologists, biologists, etc.) instead of as members of the teaching profession;
2. emphasis early in instructors’ careers (graduate school, when working to attain jobs and then tenure) on research and publishing;
3. instructors’ resistance to being told what to do;
4. instructors’ unwillingness to sacrifice content delivery for better teaching;
5. instructors’ momentum and no perception that current practices need to change;
6. risk to sense of self involve with change by change by instructors

These are succinct descriptions of the anecdotes and grumblings I hear all the time, from instructors who have transformed to student-centered instruction, from instructors who see no need to switch away from traditional lectures and from my colleagues and peers in the teaching and learning community whose enable and support change.…

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