Scott Chadwick Assistant Professor Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication

Born in Cedar Rapids, I spent my formative years in Iowa. Studying at the University of Iowa, where I earned a BS in Psychology with a minor in Business Administration, I became interested in learning how organizations work. I earned my MBA from the University of Kansas, entering corporate America as a management consultant, then continuing as a financial analyst, and a financial software analyst. All positions were interesting in that they afforded me the opportunity to see the big picture of organizational operations while working on specific tasks. I became increasingly interested in how organizations help their members learn as I worked for change in the organizations for which I worked. I returned to graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in Communication Studies, focusing on conflict and organizations.

My experiences as a management consultant trained me to use both teacher-centered and learner-centered techniques, depending on the situational exigencies present. In graduate school, I learned the basic research and theory behind both paradigms. As a teacher and scholar, first at Oregon State University and now at ISU, I sought more information about the practice of, and learning outcomes associated with, both paradigms. Much has been written about both paradigms, though empirical studies of learner-centered practices are relatively few.

Each semester, ISU students enter classrooms excited about the prospects of learning and intellectual growth. Simultaneously, our teachers are excited to enter the classroom, enacting their well-planned courses in an effort to help students learn. In many respects, the process of teaching students about classroom interactions, socializing them, is similar to the process new workers go through when being socialized to the culture of a company for which they will work. Teachers, like managers in organizations, can help students learn how best to perform in the teachers' classes. In effect, teachers can use communicative behaviors to socialize students to teacher-centered and learner-centered paradigms. Student socialization occurs within all classes. Students then make sense of their experiences, building an understanding of what it means to be a learner at ISU, as they move from course to course, similar to workers transferring jobs within an organization. Thus, it is important for socialization attempts, such as helping students learn how to learn best, to occur across the organization.

Research demonstrates better learning outcomes in learner-centered classes than in teacher-centered classes, in part because of the flexibility of teaching and learning techniques allowed within the learner-centered paradigm. Historically, students have been taught to learn within teacher-centered classes, but many have not been taught how to learn within learner-centered classes. That is, they may need to be socialized away from the expectations they traditionally hold, and incorporate new learning and teacher-student interaction expectations oriented toward the learner-centered paradigm. The project I will undertake as a CTE Fellow seeks to answer the question, "How do teachers socialize their students to a specific paradigm of learning?"