I recently read Deandra Little‘s article titled “Reflections on the State of the Scholarship of Educational Development“. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Deandra present at different conferences and enjoy her work; this article was no exception.
Deandra Little
Below, I have written down a few quotes that particularly stood out for me during my first read of the article [see note 1 at bottom]:
- Educational development: “the profession dedicated to helping colleges and universities function effectively as teaching and learning communities” (from , & 2007, p.93) [love this definition and am going to add it to my portfolio]
- We strive to be the “learning partners of choice” (Debowski, 2011, p.320) in our communities
- “We have…been hesitant to claim leadership roles as we promote and collaborate on institutional projects (Shroeder & Associates, 2011), preferring often to cultivate change quietly, indirectly, or in partnership”
- When we research and publish the scholarship of educational development we need to keep asking:
- What knowledge bases do we build on and add to? What new things are we saying about something old?
- What old approaches might productively help explain new evidence?
- More broadly: What topic areas do we want to explore and what research questions do they pose?
- How many different approaches and methods can we use to create the fullest possible picture of that topic?
- What possibilities are we overlooking?
- (I have modified the formatting of this last quote to make the questions stand out more)
Note 1: The article as a whole is worth reading and the ideas above are just a few that stood out for me. I am deliberately trying to keep my blogs short and easy/fun to write because, if I don’t do so, I simply won’t write these.
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