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Case Studies - Changing The Instructor's
Role
The Atlas complex amounts to a set of assumptions--which most of us
developed through years of formal education-that a teacher should be
the central figure in the classroom, assuming full responsibility for
what goes on, while a student should be the receiving figure whose
success is measured by meeting largely pre-specified expectations for
demonstrating mastery of what the teacher provides. In Finkel and
Monk's words1, teachers who participate in the Atlas
complex "supply motivation, insight, clear explanations, even
intellectual curiosity. In exchange, their students supply almost
nothing but a faint imitation of the academic performance that they
witness" (p. 85). Teachers "exercise their authority through control
of the subject matter," but they "lack the power to make things
happen for their students" (p. 85). The ideal relationship is
understood to be that of the teacher (expert provider) and the
student (novice receiver)--what Finkel and Monk call the "two-person
model" (p. 85). Classes are a modification of this ideal wherein,
due to economic factors, the teacher fulfils the expert provider role
for many students and also adds the group leader role. The Atlas
complex comes full circle with the belief, held by both student and
teacher, that the students should rely on the expert leader for
answers and not view themselves or other students as learning
resources.
Finkel and Monk explain that most faculty, when they consider this
"ideal" paradigm, are quick to realize that it assumes an approach to
teaching that is at odds with their own experience of effective
learning. They state,
A teacher who takes responsibility for all that goes on in the class
gives students no room to experiment with ideas, to deepen their
understanding of concepts, or to integrate concepts into a coherent
system. Most teachers agree that these processes, together with many
others, are necessary if students are to understand a subject matter.
Any teacher will say that the best way of learning a subject is to
teach it--to try to explain it to others. Scientists agree that
intellectual exchange, discourse, and debate are important elements
in their own professional development. (p. 88)
Almost anyone who has learned something well has experienced the
particular potency that a collaborative group can have through its
ability to promote and make manifest such intellectual processes as
assimilating experience or data to conceptual frameworks, wrestling
with inadequacies in current conceptions, drawing new distinctions,
and integrating separate ideas. The evidence that collective work is
a key ingredient to intellectual growth surrounds us. (p. 88)
Nonetheless, Finkel and Monk conclude that most faculty remain
trapped in a kind of monolithic Atlas complex state of mind. Those
who attempt to break out of it often find both themselves and their
students resisting the change. It feels odd--and risky--to insist
that students focus on projects and their interactions with each
other, rather than on the teacher. They feel that standards of
clarity and accuracy, to say nothing of intellectual rigor, will
surely be lowered by trusting novices to figure things out.
Finkel and Monk observe that a successful way to release oneself from
the Atlas complex and to cope with student resistance is to
distinguish teaching and learning roles, from
functions. Roles are interlocking sets of behavioral norms
that apply to categories of persons within the context of a
particular institution. The Atlas complex entails particular teacher
and student roles. Functions, in contrast, are the particular duties
or performances required of a person or thing in order to achieve a
goal or complete an activity. Examples of teaching functions include
having students examine particular phenomena from a new perspective,
getting students to organize facts and events into a general scheme,
or developing in students new skills. Each of these functions
involves particular ways of operating in the classroom--and does not,
ipso facto, need to be performed by the teacher. Separating
roles from functions allows a teacher to decide what functions would
be performed most effectively by whom--whether the teacher, lab
assistants, undergraduate or graduate teaching assistants, an
individual student, pairs or groups of students, or even electronic
tutors. It also opens up options regarding the best settings for
performing these functions.
The beautiful thing about making this role/function distinction, as
Finkel and Monk present it, is that it releases both teachers and
students from the dilemmas created by being locked into roles. They
explain:
Teachers ask, Is my role of teacher one of expert or helper? As if
they must choose between these two roles. The conflict disappears if
the teacher performs functions that require expertise at one time and
place and functions that require helping at others. To say that
students must be independent (bold, skeptical, imaginative) and
dependent (relying on the accumulated knowledge of past generations)
sounds like a contradiction because it is couched in the language of
roles. The adjectives prescribe contradictory norms for a category
of persons. But if we say instead that some of the activities in
which a student must engage require independence and that others
require dependence, then the contradiction disappears. (pp. 91-92)
Explaining the role/function distinction opens up options for
distributing teaching functions across different individuals, options
that are right on the mark for faculty whose teaching principle is
"help students take more responsibility for their own
learning."
1. Finkel, D. L., & G. S. Monk. (1983). "Teachers and learning
groups: Dissolution of the Atlas Complex." In C. Bouton & R. Y. Garth
(Eds.), Learning in groups. New Directions for Teaching and
Learning, no. 14, (83-97). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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