Interpersonal Boundaries in Teaching and Learning E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B TL Single Issue Teaching and Learning
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 219

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

While issues of interpersonal boundaries between faculty andstudents is not new, more recent influences such as evolvingtechnology and current generational differences have created a newset of dilemmas. How do we set appropriate expectations regardinge-mail response time in a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-weekInternet-connected culture? How do we maintain our authority with ageneration that views the syllabus as negotiable? Complex questions about power, positionality, connection,distance, and privacy underlie these decision points. Thissourcebook provides an in-depth look at interpersonal boundariesbetween faculty and students, giving consideration to the deepercontextual factors and power dynamics that inform how we set,adjust, and maintain boundaries as educators. This is the 131st volume of this Jossey-Bass highereducation series. New Directions for Teaching andLearning offers a comprehensive range of ideas andtechniques for improving college teaching based on the experienceof seasoned instructors and the latest findings of educational andpsychological researchers.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

FROM THE SERIES EDITOR

About This Publication

About This Volume

EDITOR’S NOTES

Chapter 1: Boundaries and Student Self-Disclosure in Authentic, Integrated Learning Activities and Assignments

Introduction: When Students Reveal

Fostering Authentic, Integrated Learning

Privacy, Power, and the Ethics of Response

Strategies: Preparing Students and Preparing Ourselves

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Managing Boundaries in the Web 2.0 Classroom

Teaching with Social Media

Student–Faculty Boundaries

Boundary Regulation Challenges

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Millennial Values and Boundaries in the Classroom

Sage on the Stage

Relationships Redefined

Generational Perspective

Student Ideals and Expectations

Underlying Values in the Classroom

Conclusion

Chapter 4: We’re All Adults Here: Clarifying and Maintaining Boundaries with Adult Learners

What Is Unique About Working with Adult Students as Learners?

Relational and Deliberate Teaching–Learning Interactions

Strategies for Boundary Setting in Relational Teaching and Deliberate Relationships

Concluding Thoughts: Boundaries as Places to Connect

Chapter 5: The Coconut and the Peach: Understanding, Establishing, and Maintaining Interpersonal Boundaries with International Students

Boundaries as Cultural Construct

Intercultural Misunderstandings Impede Faculty–Student Relationships

Navigating Interpersonal Boundaries Across Cultures: Strategies for Faculty

Concluding Thoughts

Chapter 6: Complicity or Multiplicity? Defining Boundaries for Graduate Teaching Assistant Success

Introduction, Institutional Context

General Problem

Instilling Professional Identity at New GTA Orientation

Challenging Boundaries to Meet Advanced Graduate Students’ Needs

Workshops on Humor, Classroom Disruptions, and Boundaries

Communicating Productivity: Boundaries Between Grad Students and Faculty Mentors

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Crossing Boundaries in Doctoral Education: Relational Learning, Cohort Communities, and Dissertation Committees

Challenges to Student Success in U.S. Doctoral Education

Antioch’s PhD in Leadership and Change

Creating Communities of Relational Learning Across Difference

Faculty: From Self to Team Focused

Crossing Relational Boundaries on the Road to the Dissertation

Conclusion

Chapter 8: Reflection and Intention: Interpersonal Boundaries in Teaching and Learning

Increase Our Awareness of Power and Positionality

Examine Reflexive Boundaries

Explore the Assumptions We Hold About Our Students

Clarify Expectations

Offer Transparency

Conclusion

Index

OTHER TITLES AVAILABLE IN THE NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING SERIES

INTERPERSONAL BOUNDARIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING

Harriet L. Schwartz (ed.)

New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 131

Catherine M. Wehlburg, Editor-in-Chief

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FROM THE SERIES EDITOR

About This Publication

Since 1980, New Directions for Teaching and Learning (NDTL) has brought a unique blend of theory, research, and practice to leaders in postsecondary education. NDTL sourcebooks strive not only for solid substance but also for timeliness, compactness, and accessibility.

The series has four goals: to inform readers about current and future directions in teaching and learning in postsecondary education, to illuminate the context that shapes these new directions, to illustrate these new direction through examples from real settings, and to propose ways in which these new directions can be incorporated into still other settings.

This publication reflects the view that teaching deserves respect as a high form of scholarship. We believe that significant scholarship is conducted not only by researchers who report results of empirical investigations but also by practitioners who share disciplinary reflections about teaching. Contributors to NDTL approach questions of teaching and learning as seriously as they approach substantive questions in their own disciplines, and they deal not only with pedagogical issues but also with the intellectual and social context in which these issues arise. Authors deal, on one hand, with theory and research and, on the other, with practice, and they translate from research and theory to practice and back again.

About This Volume

This volume focuses on issues of boundaries that are a sometimes-hidden aspect of higher education. Issues of time, space, self-disclosure, and even appropriate relationship boundaries are sometimes so much a part of learning that it is difficult to tell when a boundary has been inappropriately crossed. This volume explores the intricate questions that exist about power, relationships, and privacy.

Catherine M. WehlburgEditor-in-Chief

CATHERINE M. WEHLBURG is the assistant provost for Institutional Effectiveness at Texas Christian University.

EDITOR’S NOTES

Time, space, availability, self-disclosure, and the nature of relationships—college and university educators frequently face dilemmas and decisions regarding interpersonal boundaries with students. Long-standing questions, such as how much to self-disclose in the classroom and whether to set flexible boundaries with adult students, have been part of the teaching experience for decades. More recent influences such as evolving technology and current generational differences have created a new set of dilemmas. How do we set appropriate expectations regarding e-mail response time in a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week Internet-connected culture? How do we maintain our authority with a generation that views the syllabus as negotiable?

Complex questions about power, positionality, connection, distance, and privacy underlie the aforementioned boundary decision points. This sourcebook provides an in-depth look at interpersonal boundaries between educators and students, giving consideration to the deeper contextual factors and power dynamics that inform how we set, adjust, and maintain boundaries with our students.

“Boundaries are the basic ground rules for the professional relationship. They add structure … that provides guidance regarding appropriate actions and interactions. … The boundary construct is relevant to all professional relationships that involve a power differential” (Barnett, 2008, p. 5). Seeking to deal with the complexity of interpersonal boundaries, some professors choose to maintain substantial interpersonal distance between themselves and their students while others seek to eliminate the boundary completely (Tom, 1997; Barnett, 2008). Extending the distance between teacher and student can diminish the potential richness of the teacher–student relationship (Tom, 1997; Barnett, 2008). At the same time, failing to acknowledge the power differential or seeking to remove it also reduces teacher effectiveness. In one study, a professor realized that by trying to replace her positional role of professor with that of friend or peer colleague, she was less able to support and guide her graduate students, and her students reported frustration and confusion regarding work expectations (Buck, Mast, Latta, and Kaftan, 2009). In another study (Gardner, Dean, and McKaig, 1989), a professor attempting to eliminate her hierarchical role in a women’s studies class realized that when she gave up her position, advanced students assumed power in the room and diminished the participation of other students. Further confirming the need for roles and differentiation, students indicate that boundaries help create a safe space for intellectual risk taking and also maintain the uniqueness of the teacher–student relationship (Schwartz, 2011).

Although boundary decisions are inherent in the lives of educators, the topic is given little attention in the literature. The most commonly discussed boundary situation is that of intimate relationships between teachers and students, a matter sometimes addressed by organizational policy (Tufts University, Office of Equal Opportunity, n.d.; University of Michigan, Office of the Provost, n.d.; University of Queensland, Australia, n.d.). In the scholarly literature, researchers have studied perceptions of boundary violations (Kolbert, Morgan, and Brendel, 2002; Owen and Zwahr-Castro, 2007; Henshaw, 2008) and have provided general frameworks for assessing boundary questions (Tom, 1997; Sumsion, 2000; Barnett, 2008; Johnson, 2008; Buck, Mast, Latta, and Kaftan, 2009). In this sourcebook, we aim to deepen the dialogue regarding interpersonal boundaries between educators and students. Moving beyond the attention-grabbing topic of teachers dating students, we explore the more common boundary questions that faculty confront daily: matters of availability, positionality, shared space, and self-disclosure.

In Chapter One, Booth explores the complexity of student self-disclosure in assignments and classroom activities. She provides strategies for crafting these experiences and responding to students who may self-disclose more than is appropriate. In Chapter Two, McEwan offers a nuanced look at social media and interpersonal boundaries. She helps us think about how to appropriately connect with students in the Web 2.0 context and how to balance student expectations with our own needs in terms of availability and privacy. Next, in Chapter Three, Espinoza describes the concept of generations and shares his research on Millennial values while exploring implications for setting boundaries with this age cohort. In Chapter Four, Booth and I consider the unique boundary questions that emerge when teaching adult learners and use relational practice and deliberate relationship frameworks to process these dynamics and offer strategies. In Chapter Five, Yamashita and I, drawing on Yamashita’s research, seek to illuminate boundaries as a cultural construct and to provide strategies for increasing connection and maintaining boundaries with international students. Next, in Chapter Six, Dunn-Haley and Zanzucchi explore boundary challenges in the lives of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who are typically beginning their teaching careers and also balancing multiple roles with senior faculty. The authors describe a comprehensive GTA development program that includes significant boundary-related content. In Chapter Seven, Holloway and Alexandre reject conventional ideas about interpersonal boundaries in doctoral education and describe a PhD program that is based on connection and collaboration among students and faculty. In Chapter 8, I provide a synthesis of the volume.

I would like to thank a number of colleagues who contributed to this sourcebook. I extend my deep appreciation and respect for the chapter authors who have contributed so thoughtfully to this work. In addition, Series Editor Catherine Wehlburg has been a tremendously helpful and enthusiastic guide for this project. Melanie Booth engaged above and beyond her role as a chapter author and helped me consider and reconsider several aspects of this book. And Sandie Turner, Jennifer Snyder-Duch, and Dee Flaherty helped me refine my own writing throughout this project.

Harriet L. SchwartzEditor

References

Barnett, J. E. “Mentoring, Boundaries, and Multiple Relationships: Opportunities and Challenges.” Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 2008, 16(1), 3–16.

Buck, G. A., Mast, C. M., Latta, M. A. M., and Kaftan, J. M. “Fostering a Theoretical and Practical Understanding of Teaching as a Relational Process: A Feminist Participatory Study of Mentoring a Doctoral Student.” Educational Action Research, 2009, 17(4), 505–521.

Gardner, S., Dean, C., and McKaig, D. “Responding to Differences in the Classroom: The Politics of Knowledge, Class, and Sexuality.” Sociology of Education, 1989, 62, 64–74.

Henshaw, C. M. “Faculty–Student Boundaries in Associate Degree Nursing Programs.” Journal of Nursing Education, 2008, 47(9), 409–416.

Johnson, W. B. “Are Advocacy, Mutuality, and Evaluation Incompatible Mentoring Functions?” Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 2008, 16(1), 31–44.

Kolbert, J. B., Morgan, B., and Brendel, J. M. “Faculty and Student Perceptions of Dual Relationships Within Counselor Education: A Qualitative Analysis. Counselor Education and Supervision, 2002, 41(3), 193–206.

Owen, P. R., and Zwahr-Castro, J. “Boundary Issues in Academia: Student Perceptions of Faculty–Student Boundary Crossings.” Ethics and Behavior, 2007, 17(2), 117–129.

Schwartz, H. L. “From the Classroom to the Coffee Shop: Graduate Students and Professors Effectively Navigate Interpersonal Boundaries. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2011, 23(3), 363–372.

Sumsion, J. “Caring and Empowerment: A Teacher Educator’s Reflection on an Ethical Dilemma.” Teaching in Higher Education, 2000, 5(2), 167–179.

Tom, A. “The Deliberate Relationship: A Frame for Talking About Student–Faculty Relationships.” Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 1997, 43(1), 3–21.

Tufts University, Office of Equal Opportunity. “Tufts Policy on Consensual Relationships,” n.d. Retrieved from http://oeo.tufts.edu/?pid=18

University of Michigan, Office of the Provost. University of Michigan Faculty Handbook, n.d. Retrieved from http://www.provost.umich.edu/faculty/handbook/8/8.D.html

University of Queensland, Australia. Handbook of Policies and Procedures, n.d. Retrieved from http://www.uq.edu.au/hupp/index.html?page=24987

HARRIET L. SCHWARTZ, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Carlow University in Pittsburgh.

1

Boundaries and Student Self-Disclosure in Authentic, Integrated Learning Activities and Assignments

Melanie Booth

How do we navigate the boundary challenges that arise when activities and assignments that are intended to foster and assess authentic and integrated student learning result in students disclosing private information?

Introduction: When Students Reveal

In one of the first college composition courses I taught, I assigned my students their first essay: “Write an autobiographical essay in which you tell the story of a significant learning experience you had in the last two years. Make sure you also describe how and why it was significant for you.” There were, of course, additional requirements, such as the use of relevant rhetorical conventions, formatting, and expected page length. But the gist was this: tell me a story of your life that has significance. I wanted to see if, by writing about themselves, they could authentically engage in the writing process and demonstrate the learning outcomes.

Most of the eighteen- and nineteen-year-old freshmen in the class wrote about relationships that were formed or broken; high school teachers who were particularly influential; courses that shaped their thinking in new ways; travel experiences; or their first cars, lovers, or jobs. But one student (I will call her Julie) turned in an essay that shocked me to my core: she wrote about an accident she caused while driving drunk only nine months earlier that had resulted in the death of her best friend, a passenger in the car. Julie went into great detail (using the appropriate rhetorical conventions) about the accident itself, her grief process, her counseling, her own injuries (many of which were visible), and her ongoing angst. She shared with me, in that short essay, a lot about herself, her family situation, and her relationship with her friend and her friend’s parents. She revealed. How could I assess her writing skills given her story? And how would I give her feedback on her lived experience as written? I did not know what to do.

Several years later, while helping a colleague develop an assignment to assess a particular learning outcome in her sociology of the family course, we devised a final essay prompt that went something like this: “Using the multiple theoretical lenses we have been studying in our course this term, select a family you know well and, in your final essay, apply at least four of the lenses to their familial structure.” The professor liked this assignment because it moved away from the lengthy multiple-choice final exam she had been using and allowed her to assess if her students could actually apply and use the theory to analyze a “real” family—a key learning outcome of her course and also of the sociology degree program. Immediately after finals week, the professor called me to let me know something had gone terribly wrong: a couple of her students had written primarily about their own families, had not applied the theoretical lenses at all, and instead had shared many details about their families that were not relevant and, in some cases, were downright disturbing. As she said, “I opened up Pandora’s box! I’m going back to my multiple-choice final—this is just too much to deal with!”

As these two examples demonstrate, as faculty in higher education, we may find ourselves reading student work or hearing students’ voices in class or in online course discussion boards that reveal a lot of personal information, information that we think might be better kept private, information that may be concerning or even threatening. Furthermore, we might not have intended this to happen. In our attempts to create richer learning activities that are integrated with our students’ lived experiences and to assess our students’ learning more authentically, we may find that students reveal personal information that raises questions about our boundaries, our roles, and our ethical responsibilities. Many of our students may have certain preconceived notions about what and to whom to self-disclose; for others, these kinds of learning environments may be unknown territory, and thus students navigate them without context or prior experience. Along these lines, one study revealed that students often do not feel certain as to the extent to which they should share personal information with their teachers (Keith-Spiegel, Tabachnick, and Allen, 1993). Furthermore, as Lucas (2007) contends, when assignments allow students to choose or customize their own topics, students will, in fact, “disclose their cultures, political leanings, spiritual views, personal biases, habits, hobbies, and social and socioeconomic lives” (p. 368).

Regardless of our intentionality or students’ readiness for participating in these kinds of learning activities and assignments, boundary issues may emerge. This chapter reviews the benefits and challenges of fostering authentic, integrated learning; discusses perspectives of privacy, power, and ethics; and identifies approaches for faculty to traverse boundary challenges that may surface in these rich learning environments.

Fostering Authentic, Integrated Learning

The concepts of authentic and integrated learning have been widely applied in higher education over the past several years. Authentic learning is a pedagogical approach for bringing real-world relevance into the classroom with the intent of deepening student engagement, learning, and preparation for life after college. Authentic learning provides students with opportunities to work together to investigate, discuss, and meaningfully understand and apply concepts and relationships with real-world problems and projects that are relevant to the learner (Donovan, Bransford, and Pellegrino, 1999). Likewise, integrated learning is an educational approach that engages students in the “systematic exploration of the relationship between their studies of the ‘objective’ world and the purpose, meaning, limits, and aspirations of their lives” (Palmer and Zajonc, 2010, p. 10). This pedagogy must take into consideration the need for “carefully crafted relationships of student to teacher, student to student, and teacher to student to subject” (Palmer and Zajonc, 2010, p. 29).

In that authentic and integrated pedagogical approaches connect academic learning to students’ lives, several characteristics of these approaches reveal potential challenges with student self-disclosure. Having students apply theory to their own lives and experiences, providing students with opportunities to collaborate with and learn from each other, and asking students to critically reflect on their experiences publicly or privately are but just a few ways in which these kinds of learning approaches can result in students revealing more to us, and potentially to other students, than we anticipated. Indeed, although we may create authentic learning experiences and assignments that intentionally request some form of self-disclosure, as I did as a college composition instructor, we also may unintentionally design assignments that result in self-disclosure, as did my sociology colleague. Either way, we can quickly find ourselves in uncomfortable positions or significant dilemmas regarding what our students reveal to us and to others in class.

A specific challenge with authentic, integrated learning methods is that they may evoke strong emotions for our students, and many critics of these methods claim that they are problematic because emotions do not belong in the college classroom (Palmer and Zajonc, 2010). These kinds of learning activities can in fact consume the whole person and not just the intellect; they can affect not just the brain but the mind, “which is not an organ but a process” (Palmer and Zajonc, p. 41). But the deep learner engagement that comes from these approaches—engagement that is often emotional and that can inspire students to self-disclose—also can ultimately result in profound learning outcomes. These approaches thus offer opportunities for transformative learning, when individuals critically reflect on their experiences, beliefs, and assumptions and thus change their frames of reference (Mezirow, 1991, 2000). Bleich (1995), for example, proposes that a full-fledged “pedagogy of disclosure” can be quite significant for learning about power and privilege: “A pedagogy of disclosure needs and asks to know who is in the class with us; it believes that what each person brings to the classroom must become part of the curriculum for that course” (p. 47). This can create what Bleich calls the “contact zone”: a point where cultures can meet, clash, converge, and students can ultimately come to understanding.

Regardless of our intention to fully implement a “pedagogy of disclosure” or not, learning activities that we design with authentic and integrated approaches are likely to prompt more self-disclosure than traditional term papers, multiple-choice tests, or factual academic papers (Haney, 2004). Although many of us are committed to authentic and integrated pedagogical approaches because they can, in fact, deepen an individual’s or a student group’s learning, we also need to be prepared for the reality that some students may have unmet emotional needs; students may need to tell their stories, to share their experiences, to reveal, and to passively or actively seek help. What students reveal may be inextricably linked to their needs to do so (Petronio, 2002). Furthermore, what a student shares or does not share, and which students disclose what kinds of information and how they do so, are aspects of self-disclosure likely influenced by their cultural backgrounds and norms. For example, Delgado Bernal (2002) points out that although “students of color are holders and creators of knowledge, they often feel as if their histories, experiences, cultures, and languages are devalued, misinterpreted, or omitted within formal educational settings” (p. 106).

Students in higher education are also often negotiating three complex tasks simultaneously: learning the academic language and how to participate in the academic conversation, internalizing this language, and then reexternalizing it through writing or other assignments and learning activities (Lucas, 2007). Therefore, even the most careful review of our course assignments and activities may not tell us why students disclose what they disclose, but we can predict that somewhere down the line, when we create authentic and integrated learning opportunities, students may self-disclose private information in some form as they are learning their way around our classes and institutions.

Privacy, Power, and the Ethics of Response