Not only was the course about to change, but this would prove to be the third major curriculum change for this particular course and those who taught it. Considering this and that the new content would be a major shift in the thinking and teaching for the employees on a daily basis, the manager realized the need for a comprehensive solution to the problem. While this would be the first curricular change with the current manager, the employees had experienced multiple significant changes in the past, causing concern and resistance to face such a dramatic change once more.
Change in Daily Practice
To complement the changes in curriculum that underscored the importance of critical thinking beyond the classroom, it was necessary to revamp teaching practices. In order to teach critical thinking, employees in the department needed to be thinking critically. With so many past changes and curriculum adaptations, this practice often suffered due to employees trying to keep up with what was changing in the course and in their roles.
Questioning, engagement, and lifelong learning are vital to the success in the classroom, boardroom, and workplace. To become lifelong learners, adults need to question and be engaged. In order to get adult learners to engage in high-order thinking, employees had to ensure they were regularly doing this themselves, and then demonstrate this in their reciprocal engagement with students. Therefore, employees needed to reflect on their current teaching habits and beliefs to align with the university’s prerequisites for teaching excellence. The manager needed to find a solution that would encompass the need to engage employees, enhance their questioning and engagement in their own classrooms, and impress upon them the value of modeling these practices.
Needs of the Group and Individuals
Once the problems had been identified, the manager considered the needs of her department and their need for change. Overall, there was a list of reasons to consider why this department needed to experience a shift. The reasons included lack of cohesiveness, job dissatisfaction, a change in university initiatives, and bridging the gap between teaching excellence the needs of the 21st century learner.
Lack of Cohesiveness
Lack of cohesiveness was a challenge that impacted the department as a whole. Due to the nature of the university being strictly online, all employees in this department work remotely. By virtue of being isolated in different parts of the world and in different work environments, each instructor initially came to the job with his or her own separate understanding of what it meant to facilitate and teach online in a department focused on adult learners. Without working physically near their colleagues, employees often felt increased isolation. Their only point of contact was the manager. This caused some employees to hesitate to ask questions or seek clarification. They knew their manager was busy and did not want to ask what seemed like insignificant questions.
While working remotely gave them flexibility in determining their own routines, it also resulted in challenges for management to disseminate information uniformly and to ensure that the application of that information remained consistent.
Lack of Community
Employees also lacked a sense of community with their colleagues. They would see their peers’ names listed in the virtual meeting room during department meetings. However, that was the extent of their familiarity with most of their coworkers. Everyone was performing the same duties, teaching the same course, and serving the same population of students. However, the resulting disconnect and lack of community impacted their well-being departmental growth.
This separation and lack of a sense of community had to be remedied. The department could not physically come together for work. However, they needed to bond as a group and increase their resources by having peers to contact, share ideas and concerns with, and reach out to when needed. They also all executed the same job with the same tasks. Having peers to share resources with was important to assist each individual in the process.
Evolving Workplace Initiatives
Just as in any setting, businesses evolve. With that evolution comes shifts in initiatives. What this department faced focused on retention and persistence. There was a need to reduce the course withdrawals, failure rates, and extensions. The strategic initiatives brought a focus to all gateway courses’ analytics. Managers were required to complete monthly course observations both within and outside their departments. In their observations, managers were making decisions regarding employee performance against specific teaching excellence criterion. This fishbowl view of an employee’s daily instructional practice ratcheted up fears, emotions, and general concern for job security. This led to some employees questioning their role in the university.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction varied from person to person. Some were able to function in the current environment while others needed more. They needed more guidance, more outreach from management, and more stability. While some adapted with changes as they came, not everyone was always on board with changes. Some questioned how to successfully implement these changes without additional support. This often resulted in confusion which often lead to frustration and dissatisfaction.
Performance and Support
In the education industry, teaching excellence equates to job performance while supporting the customers means supporting students. Teaching excellence and supporting the students are vital in today’s educational marketplace. This was a major challenge for the manager while she considered her department, her options, the challenges she faced, and the solution. She wanted those in her department to grow from within and for that growth to manifest in their daily practice. She wanted to challenge them to enhance their skillset while meeting the changes that the department faced. When combined, this list illustrated the deep need for not only a shift, but an overarching change in the way the department worked and functioned as a group as well as individually.
Mind the Gap
This change process, like so many others, started with first understanding and accepting that a problem existed. The manager determined the scope of the problem, the individual and institutional contributors to the problem, and the needs of all involved. Author Brene´ Brown (2012), writes, “Minding the gap is a daring strategy. We have to pay attention to the space between where we’re actually standing and where we want to be” (p. 173). “Minding the gap” was the critical first step as the manager reflected on the status of her department and where she knew it could be with a strong framework for development in place.
Manager Perspective: An Idea to Lessen the Burden
I know that change is not easy. The fact that I was wanting such major changes inside each person as well as to the department as a whole was not lost on me. I knew I would face challenges along the way. A solution was forming. Coaching and mentoring kept coming to mind, but these alone would not create the relationships within the department that I was envisioning. I began visualizing layers. The layers moved to a filter view. I began thinking about disseminating a coaching mentoring model through layers starting at the top and filtering down until it affected the movement of the individual while also moving small groups with intention and purpose.
The coaching mentoring framework began to take shape. I imagined myself, the manager, as the Lead Coach. I would need a small team of employees who would like to participate in this new endeavor with me. In essence, they were the next layer or filter as Mentor Leads. By participating in this role they would receive group coaching from me as the manager/Lead Coach. This would begin a foundation of leadership skills where they would learn how to mentor, guide, instruct, and facilitate a small team. The Mentor Leads would be challenged with supporting a shared scholarly growth path with their small team of peers, known as Mentees; this became the next layer/filter in the process. Ultimately, the adult learners we were charged with serving would become the final filter.
While