Responding to Resistance

By: Mona El-sayed Abbas Mohammed Manar Mansour Abdelhalim Anan

This chapter forewarning: student and faculty resistance is all but a guaranteed response to learner-centered teaching.

This chapter aims to help you deal with resistance from students and colleagues.

It helps to understand why students and colleagues resist. What is the source of their resistance?

Students resist learner-centered approaches for a variety of reasons but we explain four of the most common reasons :

Learner-centered Approaches Are More Work.

These approaches are more work for faculty , who new face complex instructional design issues, but the students resist ,because they quickly realize that this means much more work for them as well.

Why students resist?

Students also resist these approach because

they are afraid . The old familiar scenario played out cross years of educational experience , with its predictable roles and expected students and faculty behavior .The teacher has opened Pandora's box and let out all sorts of unknown and unfamiliar policies , practice , assignments and expectations .

Learner-centered Approaches Are More Threatening.

These approach takes our students to new places where the responsibility for what does and does not happened is much more obviously theirs .

Learner-centered Approaches May Be Beyond Students.If teachers are unfair to students and unethical or ask students to engage in ethically compromised behavior, then we should hope that Ss would resist.

Learner-centered Approaches Involve Losses.

Overcoming the resistance is not something the teacher does for the students , it is something the teacher works to help students accomplish for themselves.

The best solutions involve communication.Consider four characteristics of the communication: The communication is Frequent and Explicit. The communication Encourages and Positively

Reinforces. The communication solicits Feedback from Students. The communication Resists Their Resistance.

Overcoming the Resistance:

Students are not only ones who resist these approaches .

Some colleagues and administrators will object as well.

Their resistance will be just as disheartening, it might be professionally threatening too .

Faculty Resistance

The objections that colleagues raise come from two sources:

They object because they find the approaches enormously threatening . they deal with issues of power and authority. These approaches take us away from an exclusive reliance on content and move us into new and unfamiliar domain of learning skills.Some colleagues resist for much more objective reasons. They are concerned about what these approaches do :let students set course policies , devote class time to develop learner skills and involve Ss in assessment activities .for many faculty , these are radical ideas.

Sources of Faculty Resistance

Be mindful of the politics.

Use the Autonomy of your Classroom.

Do Not Seek to Convert the Masses.

Document the Impact Off Your Approaches.

Find Like-Minded Colleagues.

Dealing with faculty Resistance: