{"id":4410,"date":"2017-06-26T15:59:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T22:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/?p=4410"},"modified":"2017-06-27T18:37:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T01:37:24","slug":"best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/2017\/06\/26\/best-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Inspiration Somewhere Besides in Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ainissa Ramirez uses a blow torch to make her point during a TED talk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There's been a lot I've had to unlearn, since transitioning from the corporate world to academic environments.<\/p>\n

I worked in the franchising industry for the first decade of my professional career. It was a computer training company and we had locations in 40 countries around the world. As I took on\u00a0various roles, I became increasingly responsible for researching and documenting the successes and failures that various franchise locations experienced, in an effort to propagate the learning.<\/p>\n

McDonald's has documented for their franchisees the precise amount of time to cook the french fries. We ran a far more complex business and inputs hardly ever equaled predictable outputs. However, our eccentric founder relentlessly attempted to quantify every aspect of the company that could possibly be documented, and tried to pass the lessons on with\u00a0little room for variation.<\/p>\n

When I transitioned into an entirely new context, it quickly became apparent that certain phrases that were captivating\u00a0in the franchising business were considered\u00a0revolting in higher education.<\/p>\n

Best Practices<\/h2>\n

The phrase that has been\u00a0most regularly disparaged in academic circles is\u00a0“best practices.”\u00a0Sean Michael Morris writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The worst best practice is to adhere to, or go searching for, best practices.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sean\u00a0goes on to document what he has found to be most effective in his teaching, but is careful to caution us about thinking that his lessons will work for us in the same ways. He continues to offer wonderful guidance for our work<\/a>, such as: being ourselves, creating trust, grading less \/ differently, and leaving room for silence.<\/p>\n

Another recent caution against best practices came from John Warner, on Inside Higher Ed<\/a>. He reflects on his discovery that his quizzes were not accomplishing his goal of getting students to do the reading prior to class. However, he also recognizes that in other instances, aspects of what he had tried might have worked. He concludes with:<\/p>\n

This is why I have little faith in so-called universal \u201cbest practices.\u201d There is never a one-size-fits-all technique or assessment. What works well in one context might not in another. Asking students about their experiences with reading quizzes reinforced that for me, teaching must be rooted in a collaborative process.<\/p>\n

While there may not be best practices, I have come to believe there is a \u201cbest process,\u201d and that process involves always being open to questioning what I\u2019m doing.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inspiration<\/h2>\n

Instead of looking for best practices, I now seek seeds of inspiration. The majority of the ideas that I hear about when conducting interviews for the podcast are far too overwhelming to consider feasible at my institution. However, I try to break them down into their smallest components\u00a0and see if I can't experiment with some aspect of the source of inspiration\u00a0in my own teaching.<\/p>\n