Teaching and Learning

Trusting your inner wisdom in team coaching to navigate conflict and strengthen psychological safety

What is team coaching?

Team coaching involves partnering with and walking alongside teams to help them learn together, relate together, reflect together, achieve together, and grow together. Team coaching supports teams in leveraging their collective talents and gifts to achieve goals, strengthen performance, enhance team health, and transform themselves, their team and their organization(s). Traylor et al. (2020) summarize that team coaching focuses on learning and development, goals and performance, team self-awareness and team health/functioning over a sustained time. Team coaching is systemic and intentional, focusing on individual, interpersonal and team relationships; team priorities and tasks; internal and external partner connections; and, wider systemic/societal contexts (Lines and Leary-Joyce, 2024; Peters and Carr, 2013a). Team coaching positively impacts team performance, interaction, communication, affect (e.g., trust, respect, psychological safety), as well as ongoing team and individual learning and growth (Salihovic, 2021; Peters and Carr, 2013b).

What does team coaching look like?

Team coaching is nuanced and complex. Important approaches to team coaching include:

using a combination of team coaching and individual coaching with team members and team leads,
iteratively gathering insights from the team, organizational partners, and external partners,
creating and maintaining conditions for psychological safety (Edmundson, 1999; 2018) and growth,
challenging and stretching performance for individual team members and the team as a whole,
providing expertise, mentorship, facilitation, and guidance where helpful,
building conditions for sustained team health and change,
evaluating and communicating the impact of team coaching interventions, and
paying attention to our own growth, restoration and self-care (Graves, 2021).

According to Peters and Carr (2013a) the structure of team coaching includes six core components:

Assessment (team coaching readiness, engagement of team members, stakeholders and context),
Coaching for Team Design (team purpose, structure and talent),
Team Launch (team charter, direction, vision, goals, working agreements),
Individual Coaching (leader, team members),
Ongoing Team Coaching (coach, team lead, team members, peer coaching), and
Capturing Learning, Success and Impact (results and outputs, team and social processes, individual learning, partner perspectives).

The importance of psychological safety in team coaching

Psychological safety is core to team processes, especially when teams are navigating conflict. Gallo (2023) describes psychological safety as “a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences.” Based on work by Amy Edmondson (e.g. Edmondson, 1999; Edmondson, 2018), Gallo emphasizes that psychological safety creates more motivated and engaged teams, leads to better decision-making, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. In short, psychological safety leads to better team communication, performance, creativity, resilience, and learning.

What’s core to ensuring psychological safety?

Bresman and Edmondson (2022) highlight three key approaches leaders or coaches can take to create psychological safety:

Framing: Frame team meetings and conversations as important opportunities for collaborative information sharing and intentionally invite team members to share different perspectives. Ensure you provide space and time to hear from all team members. Frame differences as valuable from the start.

I anticipate that we will all bring different perspectives to this conversation. Our diverse viewpoints will help us more fully understand each other and the issue at hand. These different perspectives enrich our discussion and help us arrive at a better outcome.

Inquiry: This is what coaches do best! Ask open questions that inspire deep dialogue. Great leaders and coaches ask questions that are curious, learning-focused, and have no correct or pre-determined answer. Don’t know what to ask? Keep it simple.

What do you think?
What else might we consider?
How do you feel about this?
What matters most?
How should we move forward?

Bridging Boundaries: I love this one. Bresman and Edmondson (2022) recommend that strength-based questions around hopes, skills and expertise, and challenges can help build psychological safety. These questions help team members see where they can bridge their expertise and boundaries. They provide a foundation for moving forward and stealthily inspire vulnerability.

What do you want to accomplish?
What do you bring to the table?
What are you up against? What are you worried about? What concerns you?

Digging deep to inspire team transformation

Team coaching is more than what you do or how you structure an experience with a team. Team coaching is coaching, and coaching is about transformation. It’s about digging below the surface.

Expert team coaches work to create psychologically safe spaces for open and honest conversations. They help teams lean into and resolve conflicts and disagreements. They learn to read the space by noticing shifts in energy, somatic responses and communication patterns to uncover what matters most. They are calm, affirming, and curious. They name shifts in team dynamics and are “prepared to drop the plan and respond to what is emerging in the team” (Lines and Leary-Joyce, 2024, p. 109).

This is the messy, magical, and essential part of team coaching that inspires new awareness and insight and results in sustained learning and transformation. It forms the heart of team coaching. This type of learning happens when teams uncover and challenge their assumptions, beliefs and frames of reference (Mezirow, 1997). Make no mistake, this is tough work. For coaches, this means leaning into team dynamics, team conflict, team tensions, team energy, team safety, team interaction, and the unspoken undercurrents of team processes.

Digging below the surface takes practice and courage. It often starts with listening to our inner wisdom. As coaches, our emotional responses and inner sensory reactions are powerful indicators that something is happening with the team that we need to pay attention to. Tuning into our inner wisdom is a coaching superpower, and mindfulness practices can help us develop this superpower.

Using the RAIN mindfulness practice to harness our inner wisdom and transform teams

I first learned about the RAIN mindfulness practice through Dr. Tara Brach’s work. I often use the RAIN (Brach, 2021) practice to navigate and live through the inevitable and common human experiences associated with stress, anxiety, anger, fear, frustration, grief, sadness, and burnout. RAIN stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nuture.

Let’s break down how to leverage the RAIN practice to navigate tension and conflict in team coaching.

Imagine you are coaching a team, and you suddenly feel tension arising.

Drawing upon the work of Lines and Leary-Joyce’s (2024) approach to conflict and Brach’s (2021) RAIN framework, here is an example of how RAIN can help. Take note of how RAIN is used as an internal strategy for the team coach and as a coaching framework for the team throughout this example.

Recognize

Recognize what is happening and note what is emerging within you. Tap into your inner wisdom. Your feeling body is filled with wisdom. It has much to offer and teach your thinking mind. Pause and reflect on questions such as:

What thoughts, behaviours, and feelings am I experiencing?
What emotions are surfacing for me?
Where are these emotions living in my body?
What sensations am I experiencing?
What are these sensations wanting from me?
How could these feelings be an indicator of what others are feeling?

To help the team recognize and name what they are experiencing, identify what you are experiencing and invite them into the process.

I am feeling some tension arising. Do any of you feel that way, too?

Allow

Allow the experience, emotions, and sensations to be there, just as they are. There is no need to suppress, fix, judge or avoid these arisings. Remember that these reactions are there to support and help you. They are alerting you to pause and pay attention to something important. They are there to support your and the team’s success and learning.

You may acknowledge your sensations silently in a way that is meaningful to you.

I see you anxiety. I feel you as my jaw and hands clench.

To help the group uncover and allow their experiences, explore questions such as,

What are you noticing or experiencing as a team?
What emotions or sensations are you noticing arise within you?

Allowing is about creating space for folks to name, acknowledge and sit with their discomfort. Your role as team coach is to create a safe, open discussion where team members can identify what they are experiencing without judgment. It is the beginning of helping the team identify patterns of conflict and their impact on team dynamics and performance.

It may be helpful for team members to use statements starting with,

I feel…
I am…
I notice…

Create space for all voices to be heard. Encourage team members to name and sit with their discomfort, rather than judge, blame or rush to solutions. Validate and encourage different perspectives and encourage team members to do the same. Remember, this inner work is tough and may be new to many team members. Some team members may benefit from accessing an emotions or feelings wheel. I still use an emotions wheel regularly, as in the moment, it’s tough to identify what’s happening within us!

Your calm and reassuring presence is essential. Consider taking grounding breaths throughout the process. Affirming statements can help folks ease into the conversation.

It’s natural for strong emotions to arise during conflict.
Different people may experience this situation differently.

Investigate

Investigate with curiosity, interest and care. Investigation starts with you. You may silently reflect on questions such as,

What information are my emotional sensations providing me about my experiences as a team coach?
What information are these arising providing me about the team structure, dynamics and processes and the broader system they function within?
What patterns in the team’s dynamics and interactions am I noticing?

To dig deeper into an exploration of tension and conflict with the team, you may explore questions such as,

What patterns are you noticing?
What is this situation offering or teaching the team? What opportunities is it revealing?
How might the team structure be contributing to this situation?
What broader organizational dynamics or external contexts may be contributing to this situation?
What are your roles, contributions and responsibilities related to this situation?
What strengths could emerge from working through this?
What do you need from the team in this moment?
What does the team need from you?

Again, your calming and curious presence is essential. Notice your and the team’s tone, posture and somatic responses and intentionally work to ease tension throughout the discussion. Take pauses and breaks if necessary.

Nurture

Nurture psychological safety and demonstrate compassion and self-compassion. Demonstrate compassion and encourage self-compassion by openly acknowledging, appreciating and affirming courageous and vulnerable contributions.

Self-compassion (Neff, 2023) involves giving ourselves support and compassion, just as we would a friend, especially when we are experiencing discomfort, suffering and pain. It includes demonstrating self-kindness, acknowledging the common humanity of our experiences, and practicing mindfulness. It is about reducing the separation we feel from one another.

Working through conflict and disagreement is tough work. Self-compassion can be demonstrated throughout the RAIN cycle. For example, you may silently acknowledge,

Working through conflict is an important component of my role as coach. It’s tough work.

The gentle movement of placing one of your hands on top of the other can help demonstrate self-compassion and care.

Encourage self-compassion and compassion by the team by normalizing and emphasizing the importance of team conflict.

Thank you for working through this process. Conflict and disagreement are critical to fostering team health.
Working through moments of tension, conflict and disagreement provide incredible opportunities for team learning, innovation, and growth.
It takes courage, expertise and vulnerability to lean into team tensions. You’ve strengthened the way you interact as a team and surfaced new and different perspectives.

Nurture psychological safety through shared framing, inquiry and bridging boundaries (Bresman and Edmundson, 2022). Check-in and facilitate a debrief to synthesize what the team learned and how they will move forward. Ensure you allow for time to hear from all team members.

The act of psychological safety is a demonstration of compassion and self-compassion as the team is provided with time to normalize and mindfully reflect upon the learning and growth they have accomplished.

Consider questions such as,

What strengths emerged from working through this?
What did you learn about navigating team conflict and ensuring psychological safety as you worked through this? As individuals? As a team?
How will you carry forward what you learned as a team?
What might you add to your team agreements based on this experience?
How will you reflect upon and celebrate the work and growth you have experienced today?

Conclusion

Listening to and leaning into our inner wisdom is one of the most important practices we can develop as team coaches. Like any practice, it takes practice! RAIN provides an accessible framework for helping us leverage our and the team’s inner wisdom to navigate tension, disagreement and conflict, and to strengthen psychological safety.

RAIN has completely reframed conflict and tension for me. It’s helped me see this discomfort as an essential part of team health, learning and growth. Most importantly, it’s given me a grounded approach to strengthen my capacity to help team members and teams become more curious, human-centred and resilient.

Call to action

I encourage you to find one component of the RAIN practice that resonates with you and to try it in a team coaching experience. The RAIN practice can apply to your individual leadership and coaching practices too. You may start by recognizing the emotions and sensations that arise within you during a team discussion, or by engaging in a conversation of what the team experiences during a moment of energy, passion and joy. RAIN can also illuminate joyful team experiences. You may start by sharing and discussing this post with a coaching colleague or a leadership team you are working with. There is no one or right way to bring the RAIN practice to life. Do what feels most meaningful and important to you!

References

Brach, T. (2021) Blog: The RAIN of self-compassion. https://www.tarabrach.com/selfcompassion1/

Bresman, H. and Edmondson, A. (2022) Research: to excel, diverse teams need psychological safety. https://hbr.org/2022/03/research-to-excel-diverse-teams-need-psychological-safety

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons.

Gallo, A. (2023) What is psychological safety? https://hbr.org/2023/02/what-is-psychological-safety

Graves, G. (2021). What do the experiences of team coaches tell us about the essential elements of team coaching? International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching & Mentoring, 15. https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/fe000ae4-258d-4fed-8fcb-8d2d484295e1/1/IJEBCM_S15_16.pdf

Lines, H. and Leary-Joyce, J. 2024. Systemic Team Coaching 2nd Edition. AoEC Press.

Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New directions for adult and continuing education, 1997(74), 5-12. https://www.ecolas.eu/eng/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Mezirow-Transformative-Learning.pdf

Neff, K. D. (2023). Self-compassion: Theory, method, research, and intervention. Annual review of psychology, 74(1), 193-218.

Peters, J., & Carr, C. (2013a). High Performance Team Coaching: A Comprehensive System for Leaders and Coaches. Friesen Press.

Peters, J., & Carr, C. (2013b). Team effectiveness and team coaching literature review. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 6(2), 116-136. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17521882.2013.798669

Salihovic, K. (2021). Team coaching in the workplace. A literature review on team coaching and solving performance deficiency in the workplace, University of Gothenburg, School of Business, Economics and Law.

Traylor, A. M., Stahr, E., & Salas, E. (2020). Team coaching: Three questions and a look ahead: A systematic literature review. International Coaching Psychology Review, 15(2), 54-68. https://www.siopsa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/ICPR-Vol-15.-No.-2-Autumn-2020.pdf#page=56

What does it mean to be an educational developer?

I’ve been connecting with several teaching and learning leaders across Canada, exploring the shifts and transformations we have been experiencing in higher education following the pandemic. I’ve experienced something during these conversations that has taken me by surprise. I’ve caught myself wondering:

What does it mean to be an educational developer? What do we do and what are our core ways of being? What guides how we approach our work? How has this shifted over the last few years?

As a leader in educational development and and higher education, you may think that this should be top of mind. It’s always helpful to pause and reflect upon what you do and what most strongly guides your practice.

Thankfully, I’m not the first person to consider this. Authors like Debra Dawson (Dawson et al., 2010), Lynn Taylor (Taylor & Rege Colet, 2010), Graham Gibbs (Gibbs, 2013), and Kathryn Sutherland (Sutherland, 2018) have put some great thinking into the work of educational development. Building upon the work of Gibbs (2013), a group of colleagues and I (Kenny et al., 2017) described many activities that educational developers engage in such as: working to strengthen teaching and learning practices with individuals, groups of educators, and faculties/departments, partnering with educators, departments and faculties to influence academic course and curriculum development, improving learning environments and spaces, influencing institutional processes, structures and policies related to teaching and learning, supporting quality assurance processes, and engaging in program evaluation, scholarship and research.

We emphasized that educational development takes place across multiple organizational levels: with individuals; departments, faculties, committees and working groups; across the institution; and even across the sector of higher education (Simmons 2016, Taylor & Rege Colet, 2010). Kathryn Sutherland (2018) encourages us to think even more broadly about academic development to consider the whole of the academic role, the whole of the institution, and the whole of the person.

Much of the above work focuses on what educational developers do. In 2013 Julie Timmermans (Timmermans, 2013) described threshold concepts in the careers of educational developers. She emphasized ways of knowing and being such as: respecting existing expertise, building capacity, starting where people are at, getting out of the way, thinking and acting strategically across mutliple organizational levels, influencing knowledge sharing and flow, seeing patterns and opportunities, collaborating and building relationships, communicating effectively, engaging in reflection, adapting a scholarly approach, and adapting to context.

But what does this actually look like in practice?

A group of educational developers at UCalgary came together to reflect on how we approach our practices. We called these our academic core beliefs. In 2023, we expanded upon these beliefs to describe guiding principles for our educational development practices at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning (TI). I’ve presented this work below:

Collective Capacity: We foster integrated, ethical, and equitable networks of practice and leadership to build connections that strengthen our collective capacity to improve post-secondary teaching and learning. We provide context, resources, and expertise to help others enhance their learning, share knowledge, build communities, and influence change in teaching and learning. We believe that teaching and learning expertise and different ways of knowing are distributed across the academic community, and that relationships and a relational approach are paramount to our work. We learn from others and within diverse intercultural contexts founded on integrity which create opportunities for meaningful dialogue and action.
Collaborative Relationships: We believe it is essential to foster significant conversations and networks through both formal and informal processes. We support the development of collegial relationships and collaborations within the TI and across academic communities. We believe that context and culture matter, and that diverse ways of being, knowing, and doing exist. We respect, celebrate, and draw upon the knowledge, experience, and perspectives of the diverse roles, backgrounds, and cultures of colleagues.
Learning focused: We are all learners; therefore, we emphasize approaches that lead to meaningful and enriching learning experiences for all. We model and disseminate strategies that empower educators and students to actively engage in learning. We acknowledge that learning is an iterative and contextual process that can be supported by critical reflection, research-informed principles, and diverse ways of knowing, being, and doing,
Scholarly and cultural relevance: We believe it is important to critically examine knowledge and assumptions through inquiry, scholarly practice, practice-based research, and culturally relevant approaches. We commit to making decisions based on the best available information that incorporates multiple ways of knowing. We engage with the scholarship of teaching and learning and actively support and disseminate it to strengthen educational development.
Leadership: We believe that shared, collaborative leadership approaches are key to meaningful decision-making, transformation, and change in postsecondary education. We provide expertise, support, and resources to empower others to lead. We bring our scholarly experience and wisdom of practice to identify gaps and lead initiatives to influence change in teaching and learning. We model leadership approaches that are grounded in building trust and relationships across the academic community.
Critical Reflection: We believe that critical reflection is essential to fostering growth, enhancement and innovation in teaching and learning, as well as professional practice. We commit to being intentional about our individual and collective educational development approaches by engaging in critical self-reflection, examining our own positionality and assumptions, and modelling reflective practice.

A call to action

If you are an educational developer in higher education, I encourage you to open a conversation with your team.

What are the principles that guide your work in higher education? What practices bring these principles to life? How might these principles or approaches be shifting?

Concluding thoughts and thanks

I am proud of the work our team continues to put into meaningful considering not only what we do as academics in the TI (i.e., what we do?), but how we approach our work (i.e., who we be?). Special thanks to colleagues Alysia Wright, Carol Berenson, Cheryl Jeffs, Frances Kalu, Fouzia Usman, Jaclyn Carter, Kara Loy, Kim Grant, Patti Dyjur, Robin Mueller, and Sreyasi Biswas, who thoughtfully informed and contributed to the development of these core beliefs and principles over time. Apologies if I missed anyone – let me know if I did and I will add you!

Coming back to these principles has helped ground what I believe to be most important about educational development approaches and practices in higher education.

References

Dawson, D., Britnell, J., & Hitchcock, A. (2010). Developing competency models of faculty developers. In L. Nilson & J. Miller (Eds.), To improve the academy: Resources for faculty, instructional, and organizational development(Vol. 28, pp. 3-24). Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Gibbs, G. (2013). Reflections on the changing nature of educational development. International Journal for Academic Development 18(1), 4-14.

Kenny, N., Popovic, C., McSweeney, J., Knorr, K., Hoessler, C., Hall, S., Fujita, N., & El Khoury, E. (2017). Drawing on the principles of SoTL to illuminate a path forward for the scholarship of educational development. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(2), n2.

Sutherland, K. A. (2018). Holistic academic development: Is it time to think more broadly about the academic development project?. International Journal for Academic Development, 23(4), 261-273.

Simmons, N. (2016). Synthesizing SoTL institutional initiatives toward national impact. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 146, 95-102

Taylor K. L., & Rege Colet N. (2010). Making the shift from faculty development to educational development: A conceptual framework grounded in practice. In A. Saroyan & M. Frenay (Eds.), Building teaching capacities in higher education: A comprehensive international model (pp. 139-167). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Timmermans, J. A. (2014). Identifying threshold concepts in the careers of educational developers. International Journal for Academic Development, 19(4), 305-317.

From learning-centred to human-centred education

When I started my work in educational development and teaching and learning in the early 2000s, we talked a lot about the need to shift our focus from teaching to student learning in higher education. Fundamentally, this meant embracing a mindset more focused on what and how students learned rather than the content we taught, or how we would transmit knowledge. Through a learning-centred approach, students were seen as the starting point of the curriculum, learning experiences focused on meaningful student engagement and collaboration, learning skills such as metacognition, problem-solving, critical reflection, evaluating evidence, and developing arguments were seen as essential to developing subject matter expertise, and instructors and students were recognized as part of a learning community, sharing the work and process of learning (Paris and Combs, 2006; Weimer, 2013).

I feel a shift in higher education that is now moving us from a learning-centred approach to a human-centred approach to higher education.

I am only starting to conceptualize what this might mean. One of the key principles of human-centred design is that it considers “human perspectives” in all steps of the process, thereby creating outcomes that are meaningful to all involved (Burns, 2018; Leason et al., 2022). Human-centred design recognizes those within the system as whole beings who are multi-faceted, and places the needs and well-being of humans at the centre of design processes (Leason et al., 2022). Advocates suggest that human-centred design approaches help embrace ambiguity and complexity, create community, recognize the importance of local context, and support innovation and well-being (Bazzano et al., 2017).

What could this mean for higher education?

I’ve adapted some of Gill and Thomson’s (2017) work on human-centred education to describe a few core principles for a human-centred approach to higher education (HCHE) below:

Human Flourishing: HCHE focuses on the well-being and flourishing of all within the system, respecting the needs of faculty, staff, students and the community itself.
Holistic Development: HCHE focuses on the development of whole beings and communities. This includes looking beyond academic or performance metrics and goals, toward indicators of emotional, physical, social, psychological, and spiritual well-being and development.
Lived-Experience: HCHE recognizes and affirms the lived experiences and expertise of those within the community, as intrinsically important and valuable. HCHE meaningfully includes the lived experiences of students, staff and faculty in planning, design, and decision-making processes.
Learning in and as a Community: HCHE recognizes that staff, students and faculty contribute to the planning, creation, and nurturing of teaching and learning communities.
Learning Beyond Knowledge and Skills: HCHE conceptualizes learning beyond acquiring and demonstrating knowledge and skills (aka learning as doing) to focus on learning as a lifelong process, and a way of being, caring and meaningfulness (aka learning as being).
Care, Compassion, and Respect: HCHE creates and nurtures a relational culture of care, compassion and respect. In the wise words of Dr. Michael Hart, this principle recognizes the importance of “relationships before tasks” in our academic spaces, workplaces and communities. It emphasizes caring and respectful relationships across all levels of the academic community.
Iterative Learning, Reflection, and Growth: HCHE develops sustainable processes and systems for meaningful feedback, learning, improvement, and growth to improve teaching and learning. This includes the many systems and processes that support teaching and learning across multiple organizational levels. Feedback for learning goes beyond data collection to include critical reflection and meaning-making for individuals, teams, classes, programs, communities, units, and the institution.

What did I miss? What would you add or change to these principles to make them better?

How could these principles be used?

These principles could be used to inform how we approach course and curriculum design, how we develop academic processes and policies related to teaching and learning, and as a foundation for meaningful reflection, conversation and dialogue.

For example:

An individual faculty member could apply these principles to redesign a course in partnership with students.
Student councils and working groups could use these principles to develop priorities for advocacy and action.
These principles could inform the work of teaching and learning working groups or committees.
Faculties or departments could use these principles to open a conversation about curriculum renewal, or faculty, staff and student wellbeing.
Institutions could adapt these principles to inform strategic planning for teaching and learning.

Concluding thoughts

One of the gifts that the pandemic taught me is the importance of human well-being and flourishing, and the humanity of our work. Perhaps human-centred approaches will help us reimagine how we approach higher education, whether it be the courses we create, the workplaces we are part of, or the communities we contribute to. Human-centred principles could help us hold tightly to what matters most.

I welcome any thoughts and insights on what these principles could mean for higher education, and how you would strengthen them!

References:

Bazzano, A. N., Martin, J., Hicks, E., Faughnan, M., & Murphy, L. (2017). Human-centred design in global health: a scoping review of applications and contexts. PloS one, 12(11), e0186744.

Burns, C. (2018). Human-centred design. In eHealth Research, Theory and Development (pp. 207-227). Routledge.

Gill, S., & Thomson, G. (2017). Human-centred education: A practical handbook and guide. Routledge.

Leason, I., Longridge, N., Mathur, M. R., & Nickpour, F. (2022). An opportunity for inclusive and human-centred design. British Dental Journal, 233(8), 607-612.

Paris, C., & Combs, B. (2006). Lived meanings: what teachers mean when they say they are learner‐centered. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 12(5), 571-592.

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner Centred Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. Second Edition. CA: San Francisco. Jossey-Bass.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) into the future

I was asked to share some insights on the future of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) by Mindi Summers and Fabian Neuhaus as part of their work as educational leaders in residence at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. They asked me to reflect on my hopes for SoTL at UCalgary into the future. What would I most like to see?

Here is what I shared.

I hold a broad conceptualization of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). To me, SoTL extends beyond the classroom. It includes authentic and meaningful inquiry related to teaching and learning in a postsecondary context, and the many systems, practices, and processes that support teaching and learning across multiple organizational levels. You’ll note that I have not limited this definition to student learning. This expanded conceptualization recognizes that all students, staff, faculty, and academic leaders are learning within this system.

The other realization that I have come to after two decades of work in higher education is that the impacts of SoTL extend much beyond scholarly outputs, such as peer reviewed publications and presentations. Research conducted on the impact of UCalgary’s Teaching and Learning grants program (Jamniczky et al., forthcoming) speaks to the many meaningful impacts of SoTL including: working with students as partners in research and scholarship, expanding partnerships and supporting community-building with colleagues across disciplines, increased critical reflection on teaching and student learning, academic growth and improvements in teaching and research practices, as well as meaningful scholarly dissemination at the local, national, and international levels.

We know that SoTL is good for higher education. Full stop. It engages students in meaningful inquiry. It improves teaching and research practices. It inspires transdisciplinary partnerships and collaborations. It strengthens critical reflection on teaching and learning. It results in knowledge sharing and local, national, and international dissemination about teaching and learning.

Does SoTL include securing grants, engaging in inquiry, and disseminating scholarly outputs at conferences and in peer reviewed publications? Absolutely. It also includes engaging intentionally in critical reflection, asking meaningful questions in and beyond the classroom based on our local experiences and curiosities, gathering, and generating information related to these experiences and curiosities in ways that are most authentic to our experiences, and sharing our insights and pondering with colleagues through small, but significant conversations (Roxå & Mårtensson, 2009) in our local context.

What are my aspirations for SoTL at and beyond UCalgary over the next 10 years?

All staff, faculty, students, and academic leaders recognize and speak to the value of engagement in SoTL across multiple organizational levels.
We focus less on the outputs and more on the processes, impacts, and learnings from SoTL.
We strengthen a sense of belonging in SoTL.
We expand and connect SoTL communities and networks across units and disciplines.

SoTL is one of many key influencers impacting change in teaching and learning cultures. Other influencers include: 1) High-impact professional learning for individuals and groups, 2) Local-level leadership and academic microcultures, and 3) Learning spaces, pedagogies, and technologies (Kenny, 2021). As we look to continue to strengthen teaching and learning in higher education across multiple organizational levels, we must continue to broaden our conceptualization of SoTL, strive to ensure a culture of belonging in SoTL communities and identities, and recognize and value the influence and impact of SoTL in order to understand and strengthen teaching and learning and the many practices, processes, systems, and structures that influence teaching and learning in higher education.

A Call to Conversation

If you are in higher education and involved in SoTL, I’d love to hear your thoughts on SoTL and where you think it is headed into the future.

Better yet, grab a colleague or two and engage in a conversation on some of the following questions:

Where and how have you seen SoTL emerge in your local teaching and learning context?
What has been the influence of SoTL, on you, your colleagues, your department/faculty, institution, and/or discipline?
How would you like to see SoTL grow into the future?
What shift, changes or new perspectives would you most like to see?
What supports would need to be in place to further grow SoTL?

References

Jamniczky, H.A., Mukherjee, M., Stewart,R., Mardjetko, A., Pira, R., Kenny, N.A. (Forthcoming) Insights and Opportunities: Evaluating a University Teaching and Learning Grants Program.  Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Accepted for publication February, 2024.

Kenny, N. 2021. A framework for influencing change in teaching and learning cultures, communities and practices. Accessed at: /2021/08/13/a-framework-for-influencing-change-in-teaching-and-learning-cultures-communities-and-practices/

Roxå, T., & Mårtensson, K. (2009). Significant conversations and significant networks–exploring the backstage of the teaching arena. Studies in Higher Education, 34(5), 547-559.

Metacognition – a strategy for success in university teaching & learning

By: Natasha Kenny and Patti Dyjur

Following teaching and learning disruptions during the pandemic, we heard a lot about the struggles students were facing as they returned to the classroom. For example, Nappierala et al. (2022) summarized that undergraduate students faced a “skills gap” in time management, organization, independent learning, engagement and communication. Students were struggling less about the content of what they were learning, and more about the strategies they were using to support how they learned.

Herein lies what may be the most powerful strategy to support student learning and success in university courses – metacognition.

What is metacognition?

Metacognition is our awareness of and ability to reflect upon, control and improve how we learn (Stanton et al., 2021; Rivas et al., 2022). It involves: 1) learning more about how we think and learn; 2) identifying and developing strategies to regulate and improve how we learn; and, 3) planning to and actively transferring these new and improved learning strategies into other areas of our lives (Stanton et al., 2021; Fleur et al., 2021; Rivas et al., 2022). Metacognition not only helps to improve students’ learning and performance, but it helps them become better learners in the long run. What’s even better? Metacognition is a skill that can be learned, practiced, and strengthened over time (ideally over a lifetime!).

Teaching and learning interventions that provide opportunities for students to engage in self-reflection on their learning processes and behaviours, plan what strategies work best for them, and select new learning strategies to support their success into the future may best benefit them and their academic achievement (Fleur et al., 2021). Teaching and learning activities that support metacognition often don’t take much time, but they do involve on-going effort and practice.

Teaching and learning strategies to support metacognition

Here are a few of our favorite metacognitive activities.

Exam Debrief

Have students explore the following reflective prompts and dialogue with a thought partner after an exam (Tanner, 2012):

What strategies did I use, and how much time did I study for this exam?
What questions did I answer correctly? How do these demonstrate my strengths? What questions did I not answer correctly?
How do my answers compare with the correct solutions? What confusions do I still need to clarify? What course material do I need to review and practice?
What exam preparation strategies worked well that I should remember to do next time? What exam preparation strategies did not work well that I should change next time?

Diagnostic Learning Logs

Ask students to keep a log throughout the course and make brief notes on each class. You may want to save five minutes at the end of each class for students to answer the following questions:

What concepts that were introduced in today’s session are clear to me?
What concepts do I need to better understand?
What are my next steps to promote my success in the course?

Occasionally, you might want to have a class discussion to identify tricky concepts. You can also collaboratively generate strategies to better understand them, such as reading supplemental resources and reaching out to a teaching assistant (University of Tennessee Chattanooga, 2016).

Modeling

Use metacognitive techniques in your teaching to model them to students. These strategies can get you started:

Think aloud: Demonstrate specific steps or techniques while describing them explicitly. When implementing a strategy, describe what you have selected and why, what the benefits are as well as potential drawbacks. Learners can ask questions to further clarify any confusion (Ellis et al., 2014).
Diagramming: Present information in graphs, charts, timelines, and other representations as appropriate. For topics that are not easily represented in graphical form, create a mind map while describing the connections. As a follow up, ask students to create their own mind map on another topic and discuss it (including what they’ve learned through the process) with an elbow partner once they have completed it (Ellis et al., 2014).

A call to action

Our call to action for all university instructors is to intentionally integrate one additional metacognitive activity into your course. It may be through a formal course assignment or as part of an informal course activity. Trust that the benefits for student learning will likely ripple far beyond your course! Our stretch goal – take the time to stop and reflect with a colleague: What did you notice about this activity? What worked? What didn’t go as planned? What would you change going forward? Get meta about going meta in the classroom!

Curious about other activities and ideas? Tanner (2012) shares many additional metacognitive activities and prompts.

Have additional metacognitive activities and ideas that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear more about them in the comments section below!

References

Ellis, A. K., Denton, D. W., & Bond, J. B. (2014). An analysis of research on metacognitive teaching strategies. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5^th World Conference on Educational Sciences, 116, 4015-4024.

Fleur, D.S., Bredeweg, B. & van den Bos, W. Metacognition: ideas and insights from neuro- and educational sciences. npj Sci. Learn. 6, 13 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00089-5

Napierala, J., Pilla, N., Pichette, J., & Colyar, J. (2022) Ontario Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Ontario First-year Postsecondary Students in 2020–21. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. https://heqco.ca/pub/ontario-learning-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-experiences-of-ontario-first-year-postsecondary-students-in-2020-21/

Rivas, S. F., Saiz, C., & Ossa, C. (2022). Metacognitive strategies and development of critical thinking in higher education. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 913219.

Stanton, J. D., Sebesta, A. J., & Dunlosky, J. (2021). Fostering metacognition to support student learning and performance. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(2), fe3.

Tanner, K. D. (2012). Promoting student metacognition. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 11(2), 113-120.

University of Tennessee Chattanooga. (2016). Classroom assessment strategies. Retrieved from http://www.utc.edu/walker-center-teaching-learning/teaching-resources/classroom-assessment-strategies.php#self-awareness  