Artistry in Action: Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practices

1
Artistry in Action Framing Learner-Centered
Advising Practices

• E. R. Melander
• The Pennsylvania State University
• http//www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/e/r/erm1/index
  .html
• erm1_at_psu.edu
• 2005 DUS Conference
• The Arts and Sciences of Academic Advising
• September 20 and 21, 2005

2
Introduction

• This is to be an experience-based narrative
  about theory vs practice gaps
• Practice is both a verb (to act,to do) and a
  noun (a process to carry out a plan or theory).
• Theory as a belief about something--based on
  conjecture vs theory as a validated set of rules,
  propositions, principles and techniques Theory
  as knowledge about phenomena vs Theory as
  knowledge about action and doing--about practice.
• -- Educational roles and practices I have engaged
  in--and my personal framing of their
  relationships with educational theories--Three
  theory vs practice gaps.
• Other evidence of theory vs practice gaps
• Personal career paths of academic advisers
• Career paths of graduates in a multi-role,
  multi-practice, complex, dynamic world of work.

3
Introduction

• Theory and practice are associated with
  different kinds of knowledge
• -- Formal knowledge generated by formal methods
  of scholarship in the disciplines and
• Practice knowledge constructed by practitioners
  to guide their actions in practice experiences.
• These differences are distinctive when framing
  advising practices
• Theory is typically seen as distinct from
  practice.
• But if theory is what practice is all about,
  why are advising practitioners so suspicious of
  formal knowledge and theories and why are formal
  researchers and scholars so disinterested in
  practitioners knowledge about how to do things?

4
Introduction

• There are gaps between theory and practice,
  between theorists and practitioners and the kinds
  of knowledge they work with
• Often heard That may work in theory, but not
  in practice.
• Theorists seem more interested in the
  phenomena of practice rather than the activities
  of practitioners--scholarly theorists focus on
  the general case.
• Practitioners seem more interested in how they
  do practice--their actions in practice--rather
  than in the theories of the phenomena on which
  they practice--practitioners focus on their
  experiences with particular cases.

5
Introduction

• What is it that practitioners do in their
  practice?
• Overcome the T/P gap by constructing their
  own theories.
• In their practice experiences and activities,
  practitioners are, at the same time,
  problem-solvers and scholars--they employ
  personal scholarship models to construct tacit
  knowledge and form theories about how to do
  practice--i.e., how to frame problems, make
  decisions, design actions, and form evaluations
  to solve problems in particular problem
  situations.
• This is the paradox of practice practitioners
  practice personal scholarship to gain knowledge
  and theorize about cause and effect in practice
  situations.

6
Introduction

• What is so striking about this paradox?
• The fact that the paradox--practitioners
  practice scholarship and theorizing-- is not
  widely understood among either practitioners or
  theorists.
• Who are the practitioners(and theorizers) in
  education?
• students practicing studenting--becoming
  educated in how to practice learning knowledge
  construction educational and self-development
  planning becoming educated
• teachers practicing teaching and educating
• advisers practicing advising and educating and
  the
• educational institution itself practicing
  advising and educating.

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Anticipating the story line Nine big ideas

• Advising practice involves a paradox to practice
  advising also involves practicing scholarship to
  generate new knowledge and new theories
• Knowledgeits generation, application, and
  evaluationis at the core of each practice our
  concern is with the epistemology of practice, the
  nature of practice knowledge
• 3. The practice of advising scholarship is
  based on a simple model of diagnosis, action, and
  reflection to generate knowledge and solve
  problems

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Nine Big Ideas

• 4. Good practices by practitioners include two
  types of reflective theorizing activities One
  called framing to generate descriptions of forces
  and factors affecting the actions and outcomes of
  practice the other called reflection-on-practice
  to evaluate the effectiveness of practice
  activities of diagnoses, decisions, designs, and
  actions.
• 5. Practice activities of all major educational
  practitioners in the institution are organized
  around working out responses to the question of
  what does it mean to be an educated person?

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Nine Big Ideas

• Formal knowledge generated in the disciplines is
  about understanding phenomena and is, in and of
  itself, inert. Practice knowledge and skills are
  about doing, about taking action they empower
  the practitioner to accomplish some action goal,
  such as solving a problem or enacting a project.
• An educated student is both enlightened (has
  gained knowledge about phenomena) and empowered
  (knows how to construct knowledge and use it to
  guide actions in practice situations).

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Nine Big Ideas

• 8. In higher education, the operative definition
  of an educated person has focused on
  enlightenment a student is educated if she is
  enlightened with knowledge about phenomena
  generated by formal scholarship in the basic and
  applied disciplines. This definition of an
  educated person is incomplete, for it fails to
  adequately address the students need for
  empowering visions, practice scholarship skills,
  and personal practice knowledge so that she can
  effectively engage in practice.
• 9. Practitioners in higher education must, for
  both moral and marketing reasons, reframe their
  operative definition of educational goals to be
  that of producing a fully educated personone who
  not only knows about things, i.e., is
  enlightened, but also knows how to do
  intellectual things in practice, i.e., is
  empowered to practice.

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice

• To help bridge our understanding of the gap
  between theory and practice, we shall look
  briefly at the theory of practice.
• The study of practice has as its intended outcome
  the development of a theory of practice, i.e.,
  the identification of certain principles and a
  narrative that describes the relationships among
  the component parts and the outcomes of practice.
• Modern pioneers in developing the theory of
  practice scholarship include John Dewey (1933),
  Chris Argyris (1972, 1975), Donald Schön (1982,
  1987), Howard Gardner (1983,1999), and Marcia
  Baxter-Magolda (1999). (See the bibliography)

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice

• Key concept that unlocks the mystery of the
  relationships between practice and theory
• Practice is essentially the undertaking of
  intellectual activities to solve problems
  involved in implementing some purposeful process
  (project and program enactment can be reframed as
  problem-solving).
• Practitioners scholarship activities are
  focused on the generation and use of knowledge to
  support decisions, designs, actions, and
  evaluations needed to solve problems in practice
  situations.

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice

• As problem solvers, all practitioners face a
  common two-stage task conducting a diagnosis
  and taking action
• diagnosing a particular problem situation
  involves determining what factors are at work and
  whether enough knowledge exists to reach a
  solution
• taking action involves deciding on what
  additional knowledge is needed to achieve a
  solution and designing an action on how to gain
  it and then going out and implementing that
  action.
• achieving a solution may require repeated
  applications of the diagnosis/action cycle to
  gain additional knowledge until enough knowledge
  is accumulated to achieve a solution.

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice

• The diagnosis/action cycle of practice
  problem-solving involves a four-step personal
  scholarship model (OADI) of learning and
  knowledge construction
• Diagnosis
• Observe to gather evidence
• Analyze to create and evaluate knowledge in
  context of problem situation
• Action
• Design to construct an experiment for gaining
  additional needed knowledge
• Implement to conduct the experimental design

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice

• The analysis and design steps, in particular,
  reflect the creativity--the artistry--of the
  practitioner in operating beyond generalized
  formulas and rules
• Artistry is reflected in the creative application
  of prior knowledge, judgment, and imagination by
  the problem-solver to accommodate the uniqueness
  of a particular problem situation.
• The practitioners reflections (theorizing) on a
  pool of prior experiences produce prior knowledge
  and shape prior judgments while stimulating
  imagination.

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice Other
Concepts

• Closed and Open Problem Situations in practice
• Picture puzzle example
• Framing (theorizing) in practice
• Contextual and Operational
• Expertise in practice
• effectiveness in generating and applying
  knowledge, skills, and judgments in the conduct
  of practice scholarship model
• Good Practices in practice
• decisions and actions taken to ensure accurate
  framing of problem situations and integrity and
  effectiveness in applying the diagnosis/action
  cycle

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice Other
Concepts

• Experience (in practice) alone is not
  sufficient for learning and knowledge
  construction to occur reflection is also
  required. Reflection
• is a process of applying careful thought to
  make meaning and gain understanding about
  actions, decisions, and events in terms of their
  underlying conditions, relationships, causes, and
  outcomes (theorizing).
• is at the core of the practitioners
  scholarship activities to generate knowledge.
• can occur before, during, or after the
  application of the diagnosis/action scholarship
  model.

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice Other
Concepts

• Types of Reflection
• Reflection-in-action occurs during the
  implementation of scholarship model--reflects
  expertise of practitioner
• Reflection-on-action can occur before or
  after--by practitioner or others--
• Requires a description of diagnosis, actions,
  and outcomes that is to be reflected upon.
• Ladder of reflection--reflective dialogue on
  reflections on reflections-on-practice.

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Brief Overview of Theory of Practice Other
Concepts

• Reflective appraisal process
• begins with a reflective description
• should address questions of who, what, when, and
  where and should analyze questions of why and how
  at each stage of the diagnosis/action cycle.
• needs to provide for a communications network in
  which both the reflective descriptions and
  appraisals are shared and discussed.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• A disclaimer
• Not attempting to tell you how to frame your
  advising practice
• See helpful DUS publications The Penn State
  Adviser and Center for Excellence in Advising
  (website)
• Rather, I am offering my personalized general
  framing of the roles of the adviser and advisee
  practitioners as my own reflections-on-advising
  and educating.
• Invite you to reflect on my reflection and to
  join me in reflective dialogues on frames of
  advising practices at various rungs in the ladder
  of reflection.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Coherence across the institution is a core issue
  in framing learner-centered educational processes
  and practices
• Coherence requires that there be a consistency
  among educational processes and practices in
  terms of their operational definitions of
  educational purposes, goals, and objectives.
• For there to be integrity among the institutions
  educational processes, practitioners must focus
  on a common definition of what it means to be an
  educated person.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• What should be the educational goal for the
  student?
• Response distilled from educational theories
• usually phrased in terms of developing the
  students knowledge and capacities for leading a
  fully productive and rewarding life in the worlds
  she will inhabit over her lifetime--world of own
  mind, world of knowledge, world of work, and
  worlds of nature and culture.
• paraphrased as the educational goal of the
  student should be to become both enlightened and
  empowered to function effectively in the practice
  of all her adult roles.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Students role as an educatee and advisee in
  learner-centered educational environment
• Develop knowledge and expertise on how to design
  an education that provides for self-development
  and empowerment as well as discipline
  enlightenment.
• Develop knowledge and expertise on how to apply
  personal scholarship model to construct, apply,
  and evaluate knowledge in educational practice
  situations.
• Design a path for navigating the institutions
  educational environment that leads to the
  attainment of personal educational goals.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Students competencies as educational
  practitioner for learning and generating
  knowledge as to how to frame and solve problems
  are fostered and are applicable at all levels of
  the students educational experiences
• the immediate levels of operating in context
  of teacher/learner and adviser/advisee
  interactions
• the intermediate level of operating in the
  context of the institutional education
  environment
• ultimate level of operating in practice roles
  while leading a fully rewarding and productive
  adult life.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Three different perspectives on framing advisers
  tasks top down, bottom up, or a combination of
  both
• Top down framing conditioned by the
  educational goals, roles, and support systems of
  the institution.
• Bottom up framing conditioned by the
  educational goals, roles, and capacities of the
  student advisee.
• Mixed mode framing conditioned by both
  institutional and advisee educational goals,
  roles, and conditions--i.e., framing respects
  authority of both institution and student.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• In mixed-mode model for framing advising
  learner-centered advising has become educating
  the advisee
• Adviser responsible for educating the student as
  to how to frame her own educational goals and
  navigation plans to include personal empowerment
  as well as discipline enlightenment.
• Personal empowerment includes discovering and
  developing capacities for applying multiple
  intelligences to gain practice knowledge and
  skills in how to personally frame problems, make
  decisions, form judgments, and evaluate outcomes
  in educational practice situations and, by
  transfer, in other practice situations.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Adviser responsible for providing and
  interacting with each student in the context of
  an advising discovery curriculum in order to
  guide her in
• discovering and developing her own capacities
  for applying the art of personal scholarship in
  diagnosing, designing, and reflecting to gain
  personal tacit knowledge on how to solve
  educational problems.
• discovering and planning on how to navigate
  the institutions educational opportunities to
  achieve her own educational goals and plans.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Four levels of advising curriculum
  responsibilities--correspond to four types of
  discovery questions faced by the advisee (note
  all are how to questions of practice)
• Questions about how to plan for personal academic
  and learner development.
• Questions about how to construct and assess
  progress in attaining educational and self
  development goals.
• Questions about how to gain and construct
  meta-knowledge about knowledge structures,
  cognition, and learning.
• Questions about how to discover and navigate
  institutional educational opportunities.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Question Who should decide what knowledge and
  capacities are needed by the student?
• Traditional operational answer the institution
  and its specialized knowledge agents, the
  discipline faculty, decide on curriculum content,
  reflecting their scholarship knowledge about
  phenomena of natural and cultural worlds--i.e.,
  focus is on enlightenment of student with
  discipline knowledge.
• Traditionally, adviser directs students to
  curriculum opportunities and provides check sheet
  to guide student in navigation path to meet
  graduation requirements.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Who should decide what knowledge and capacities
  are needed by the student? In Learner-Centered
  era
• Student should craft her own definition of what
  it means to be educated to include both
  enlightenment and empowerment.
• Adviser provides practicum for interactions with
  student to coach her as she learns how to craft
  her own education by doing
• How to develop self- empowerment vision and
  personal scholarship capacities.
• How to develop own educational goals and design
  own navigational path to fulfill goals.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• A gap exists between operative goals of higher
  education and the educational needs of the
  student practitioner
• Traditional operative goals to acquire subject
  matter content knowledge in the form of theories
  constructed by scholars in the formal
  disciplines--i.e., enlightenment.
• Educational needs of the practitionerto be able
  to construct, use, and evaluate knowledge in
  practice problem-solving situations--i.e.,
  enlightenment plus empowerment.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• The operative goals/needs gap
• Represents coherence problem for the educational
  processes of the institution and this translates
  to coherence problem for all practitioners in the
  educational process.
• Problem is essentially two-dimensional, one moral
  and one marketing.
• Moral issue our mission as educators is to meet
  the educational needs of students and, if we are
  not doing this, our claims that we do are not
  true. The integrity of the institutions
  educational mission has been violated.
• Marketing issue if our claims are not true, we
  have not provided truth in packaging. These
  false claims could result in recruiting or even
  legal difficulties.

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• To overcome the operative goals/needs gap
• We need to reframe the students role in the
  educational process and, correspondingly, reframe
  the educational roles of the practicing adviser
  and the institution.
• Reframe students role from completing degree
  requirements to crafting her own education by
  including dual goals of enlightenment and
  empowerment.
• Reframe advisers role see next slide
• Reframe institutions role from dominant focus
  of curriculum on enlightenment to more prominent
  centering on empowerment of student in developing
  capacities as a scholar of practice knowledge and
  skills

34
Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Reframe advisers role from helping
  students make smart choices about courses and
  majors to helping students craft a first rate
  education. (PSU President Spanier)
• Advisers as educators need to introduce
  discovery advising curriculum to coach students
  as open-ended problem solvers in designing their
  own educational goals and developing plans for
  navigating PSUs educational opportunities.
• Build advising curriculum and reflective
  portfolios based on DUS Navigator A Guide to
  Educational Planning at
• http//www.psu.edu/dus/navigate/overview.htm

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Framing Learner-Centered Advising Practice

• Reframe advisers role helping students
  craft a first rate education. (PSU President
  Spanier)
• Advisers provide discovery advising curriculum.
• Advisers conduct interactive sessions with
  advisees as dialogues to coach their
  self-development of educational goals and plans
  through learning by doingexperiences in a
  design studio or practicum setting.
• Advisers introduce structured reflections into
  interactions with advisees so that both may learn
  from their practice experiences. Use portfolios
  as reflective communication media.

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Finale

• As a finale to this narrative on framing advising
  practices, can we turn to an imagined
  self-reflection by an advisee on her practice
  experiences in learner-centered advising
• Handout An imagined reflective Nomination letter
  for Excellence in Learner-Centered Advising Award
• Advising Award Criteria The awardee must
  demonstrate a vision, a capacity, an
  understanding, a strategy, and a measure of
  outcome successall centered on the education of
  the advisee as a self-development learner and
  practitioner.
• Your reflection on students reflective
  nomination letter is invited.