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=Chapter 7=

=**Exploring Disciplinarity in Academic Development:**= =**Do "Ways of Thinking and Practicing" Help Faculty to Think about Learning and Teaching?**=

This chapter describes an exploratory study that investigated faculty members' understandings of Ways of Thinking and Practicing (WTP) and examined the role of disciplinary discourse in improving teaching and learning environments. Over the course of her investigation, the researcher held four teaching and learning seminars in three universities, and questioned additional faculty members via one-on-one interviews and printed surveys.

The Disciplinary Dimension in Initial Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Programs
Sources of information regarding discipline-based teaching and learning include: 1. Higher Education Academy (HEA) Subject Centers--Offer subject-specific events, resources, and discussion for intra-disciplinary groups. 2. Postgraduate Certificate Programs--Include experts from a variety of disciplines and offer a generic curriculum.
 * Positive feedback--Promotes interdisciplinary collaboration; Provided evidence of //some// effort to tap discipline-specific practices; Staff acknowledged the need for disciplinary perspective.
 * Negative feedback--Did not offer disciplinary relevancy; Presentation lacked a subject-specific approach.



===//"The academic developers also argued that it was important to justify the generic approach and get participants to value the interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues across a wide spectrum of subjects" (p. 86).//===



Benefits of Thinking and Discussing WTP in Academic Development Events
Participants expressed interest in thinking about, discussing, and comparing and contrasting their own WTP with those from other disciplinary communities. These exchanges provided disciplinarians with an opportunity to concretize the WTP within their own distinct community of practice.

Describing and Discussing WTP
The researcher believed that discussing disciplinary WTP might help higher education teachers to shift their instructional focus from delivering content to leading students toward a deeper understanding of the subject. She began by asking faculty members to think about and describe the key WTP of their particular community. Throughout the process, she noted a wide variety in the level of complexity with which participants' described their WTP. While some participants found it difficult to explicitly characterize such behaviors and perspectives, others offered very advanced explanations.

===//"It is therefore significant that being introduced to the notion of WTP and thinking about students as '-ists' (e.g. biologists, physiotherapists) in the making moved lecturers away from focusing on the delivery of information and facts" (p. 87)//===

Commonalities, Contestation, and Control
Participants from the same disciplinary community reported both similarities and differences related to WTP. More specifically, they :
 * Expressed concern that their own WTP might differ from that of others within the same discipline;
 * Provided evidence of agreement and disagreement among members of the same community; and
 * Recognized "distinct tribes and sub-disciplines" (p. 88) with different characterizations of WTP.

They also responded in a variety of ways to the existing professional standards and codes of practice for their particular community. Those responses included:
 * Satisfaction;
 * Reluctant compliance;[[image:CommunityVoiceLogo.jpg width="268" height="225" align="right"]]
 * Contestation; and
 * Feelings of constraint.

===//"Arising from these discussions was a sense that what matters most might not be whether a group of faculty are able to reach a consensus on the precise nature of their discipline's WTP, but that they have an opportunity to verbalize, discuss and debate them in the first place" (p. 89).//===

Notion of Community
First and foremost, participants expressed their discontent with the lack of clarity surrounding the notion of community. They were particularly concerned about students' desire to take part in a disciplinary community, the time frame for their initiation into that community, and whether their participation would center around university life or in the community at large. They were also skeptical about proffering the notion of community in areas of study where disciplinary affiliation was not straightforward, such as non-specialist coursework, and interdisciplinary programs.