Reclaiming Opportunities for Effective Teaching: An Institutional Ethnographic Study of Community College Course Outlines

(Hardback)

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This book examines the increased standardization and management of community college course outlines in Ontario and the associated decline in the ability of college professors to effectively educate their students. Dunn tracks the changes of increased pressure from corporations to privatize public services and make them for-profit friendly. Interviews of program faculty who have recently been forced to use course outlines for the first time, along with critical analyses of a sample course outline and a series of union-related texts illuminate the issue. Dunn attributes the shift of power in community colleges to various factors which include: the ideological work college employees do to support global finance capital, the managerial labor which establishes a course outline, the textual duties that faculty members facilitate to set up their own ruling, and the performance work that faculty members do to execute the textual rules of their prescriptive course outline work. In order to rectify the harmful effects of the new standardized and supervised curriculum, Dunn identifies areas where effective teaching and learning can be reclaimed.

Reviews

The commoditization and commercialization of higher education in Canada and abroad has been well documented in the literature. This book (available in hardcover or electronic format) offers a unique alternative view through the course outline lens. It is a worthwhile addition to the dynamic body of knowledge on the scholarship of teaching and learning. * Canadian Journal of Higher Education *
Mary Dunn's institutional ethnography shows us how the managerial standardization of course outlines and curriculum in Ontario community colleges displaces the learning interests of both teachers and students. Reading her book is an education in itself. -- Dorothy Smith, University of Victoria
This unusual and insightful study proves that even a course outline can reveal aspects of the broad transformations currently underway in higher education. Drawing on her own experience, as well as on interviews and mapping techniques that link documents and the people who work with them, Mary Dunn illustrates the power of institutional ethnography to illuminate the puzzles of everyday work. -- Marjorie L. DeVault, Syracuse University
Reclaiming Opportunities for Effective Teaching is a major contribution to the literature on postsecondary education. Dunns clear and present voice leads the reader through a bewildering array of complex neoliberal processes experienced by the college teacher. This book is a must-read for those wishing to understand the system of surveillance that produces deskilled teachers through punishment for non-compliance and stratification of a previous collegium. -- Linda Muzzin, University of Toronto

Author Bio

Mary Ellen Dunn was a professor at Fleming College before she retired.