Peer Partnerships

Who is involved?

Peer partnerships are required of second-year probationary faculty. All faculty are encouraged to form partnerships as often as they like. The Middle States Accreditation Teaching and Learning Subcommittee investigated the current status of these partnerships: their faculty email survey asking about peer-partnership experiences revealed a high level of satisfaction in this process improving teaching and student learning. Comments received on the peer-partnership survey were very positive, with 85% of participating faculty reporting that a peer partnership improved their teaching. However, over the past two years, fewer faculty have been participating in these partnerships (only 2 voluntary partnerships were initiated in the past 2 years). The report recommends that the College reinvigorate interest in peer partnerships, so we may be seeing more participation in the future.

What purpose do they serve?

Partnerships have been formed for many purposes: to share knowledge of new technology, to demonstrate collaborative learning techniques, to enable the development of new cross-divisional courses, to share motivational materials, to build confidence in new teachers and to model effective ways of handling student problems. The following list details some specific objectives and approaches that have been examined in the past:

· Teacher-Student Rapport or Rapport between Students

· Who am I calling on?

· What is going on behind/around me?

· Effective use of classroom time

· Delivery of content: clarity and style

· Use of small groups

How do I form a partnership?

We encourage you to look outside of your division for a partner, although divisional partners are fine too. (Your division may have a policy: check with your chair.) As new faculty, cross-divisional partnerships give you opportunities for valuable connections outside of your division, and all faculty can benefit from a fresh perspective. Some projects and goals involve the integration or cooperation of different disciplines.

A teaching idea or concern is the other key element in the partner-selection process. What would you like to improve or implement? Who might help you to do so? Talk with your colleagues about your ideas, and you'll quickly get suggestions from experienced faculty about who else in the College is interested in the same things.

Once you have a name or names, approach those people to discuss the possibility of a peer partnership. Remember that a good candidate for a peer partner is someone who has time this year for the partnership, who has ideas about your area of interest, and who is a good listener. The time involved, depending upon the goal of your collaboration, is approximately 40 hours. Many partners have a weekly lunch or email discussion, share resources, and visit each other's classes.

What kind of documentation is needed?

You will write a summary of your peer partnership experience for your spring Merit Achievement Plan (MAP). Emphasize the questions, issues, and ideas that prompted the partnership, the partnership activities, and the teaching and learning improvements that resulted from the partnership or the results you expect. A sample is included below, but be sure to check with your own division chair about what he or she expects to see.

Sample Peer Partnership Summary 1998-1999

As part of my promotion requirements, I formed an extremely rewarding partnership this year with Valerie Constantini, Chair of the Performing Arts division and Acting Chair of the Humanities division.

I asked Valerie to participate with me in this partnership because I have always wanted to examine more closely the ways in which drama has been taught in literature classrooms and in theatre classrooms. I suspected that the approaches were different: English instructors tend to focus on a play as a literary text, and to apply conventional literary terms and concepts such as theme, symbolism, diction, etc., while theatre instructors conceive of the play as a script for performance, and tend to emphasize the elements of blocking, delivery, and production. My theory was that both kinds of instructors could benefit from teaching each other their methods, so that students would receive a fuller view and learn a more comprehensive approach, one that included attention to close reading and to performance. Since I have always taught drama as an English instructor, I asked Valerie to help me find ways to integrate more performance-based lessons into THET 191 (Theatre History II) and into ENGL 120 (an introduction to literature course in which drama is a major component).

Since I was to teach THET 191 for the first time in the spring, Valerie and I talked regularly during lunch meetings, phone calls, and email throughout the fall semester to discuss the course objectives, syllabus design, and pedagogy. In the spring, we continued our discussions, and Valerie helped me get my theatre students oriented to the world of HCC theatre and the Rep Stage, with tours and information; she also visited THET 191 to give more direct feedback on the class itself.

Our most effective session occurred when Valerie and I scheduled a visit to coincide with a student-centered project that we had discussed during our lunches: I had assigned the students roles to play during a session of “tablework” on Caryl Churchill’s controversial play Top Girls. Designing the session as a director’s meeting, to give the students a clear idea of what happens once a play is cast and the team is for the first time assembled, I assigned students the roles of director, dramaturge, set designer, costume designer, and actors. Thus, when Valerie visited that day, the students ran the show: the director presented his “vision” of the play, the dramaturge offered some background information on the playwright and previous productions, the designers presented their sketches and ideas, and the actors discussed the motivations and defining characteristics of their roles. Valerie was an active participant in the process, so much so that the two of us became team teachers for that session, facilitating the discussions by offering questions or extra information. Valerie shared several great “insider” stories from the profession, from her experiences as actor and producer in various shows. It was a very lively and informative session, and it boosted my confidence that I was in fact teaching theatre as both text and script, to the benefit of my students.

I used my newfound confidence to improve the way drama is taught in the ENGL 120 classroom as well. After organizing an “ideas exchange” meeting for ENGL 120 instructors, I put together a packet of information that drew largely upon the ideas Valerie and I had generated, titled “Ideas for Teaching Drama in the ENGL 120 Classroom.” I shared these packets with all of the ENGL 120 instructors, who seemed to appreciate the range of “big” ideas (tablework sessions) to smaller ones (occasionally using blocking or tableaux exercises as a springboard for discussion).

I have always appreciated how teaching at HCC has enabled me to do the interdisciplinary work that I love, and my peer partnership experience emphasizes how faculty from different disciplines can learn a great deal of practical information about teaching and learning from each other. The experience has enhanced my teaching and my enthusiasm for teaching; and it has helped me become better acquainted with Valerie, a most wonderful person and valuable resource.