Teaching and learning innovation occurs regularly at the Maricopa Community Colleges. Each year faculty across the district research, cogitate, discuss, design, try, revise or enhance, and implement many forms of instructional innovations that expand traditional notions of teaching and learning. The creative faculty, for example, paints outside the framework of teaching convention to provide wonderful layers and images of learning for their students. They, oftentimes, generate ideas and insights with their colleagues in hopes of receiving feedback to further enhance their different pedagogic models.
Trying new or different ideas is risky. As Robert Grudin in The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation says,
creativity is dangerous. We cannot open ourselves to new insight without endangering the security of our prior assumptions. We cannot propose new ideas without risking disapproval and rejection. Creative achievement is the boldest initiative of mind, an adventure that takes its hero simultaneously to the rim of knowledge and the limits of propriety. Its pleasure is not the comfort of the safe harbor, but the thrill of the reaching sail.
At the center of each faculty innovation, small and simple or large and complex, is the need to address individual differences among students so that each student is actively engaged in his or her learning. Successful Maricopa faculty constantly look for better ways and methods to instill that special look of "aha!" among their students. And as Grudin further says, good teaching develops students' creative abilities by unlocking their sense of wonder. Students learn creativity not directly from the teacher but from the cathartic self-revelation that the teacher inspires. Such inspiration can unlock a wealth of enthusiasm and energy for learning.
Faculty and administrators in their quests to improve the state of teaching and learning often find partial answers by attending professional or discipline-related conferences, by reading professional journals, by participating in discipline or interest-related dialogues or seminars. Fortunately, because of Maricopa's size and the enthusiasm and energy of the faculty staff developers, many activities and events are offered at the colleges or at the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction to revitalize and encourage faculty and administrators in teaching, learning, and assessment. The Internet with its many available list servs is becoming a wonderful source for innovative ideas and insights.
Successful practices in teaching and learning have been highlighted and showcased at the recent All-Faculty Convocation and the Student Success Conference. On-going developments in instructional innovations have also been discussed and shared at similar events and Faculty Dialogue Days. Yet, because of Maricopa's size and distance, the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction would like to feature teaching and learning innovations by some of our faculty through the Forum each year. This is our first issue to highlight some of our faculty innovators and, we hope -- with your help -- not the last. We would like you to contribute any new ideas and insights, large or small-- simple or complex--completed or a work-in-progress for our Fall 1996 issue. This issue gives you a flavor of how six faculty individuals and teams have been creating new paradigms for learning and teaching in the last year.
We hope you will also share your ideas and stories; ones which may have appeared unsuccessful or ones that appear to be too simple can provide a wealth of information for others to refine or enhance. Henry Petroski, in The Evolution of Useful Things describes many instances of how everyday artifacts such as the paper clip and the zipper, simplistic in design and most ubiquitous tools, are very meaningful archetypes for change and evolution. Therefore, a simple overhead and short lecture which for one context of a course can be best in another context could be deadly.
There is always room for improvement in teaching and learning for different students and different content. We encourage you to talk with the following faculty to get further insights on their creative work and to modify their ideas and techniques for your own learning environments.