Reflective Design in Action: A Collaborative Autoethnography of Faculty Learning Design

Area of Science:

• Educational Development
• Higher Education Pedagogy
• Faculty Learning Design

Background:

• Limited research exists on university faculty's course design processes.
• Existing studies offer modest detail on faculty's reflective and iterative design approaches.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the research gap by detailing faculty learning design processes.
• To explain how faculty engage in reflective, iterative approaches to course design.
• To provide ethnographic evidence on faculty learning design strategies.

Main Methods:

• Employed collaborative autoethnography (CAE) with seven faculty members and an educational developer.
• Systematically collected and collaboratively analyzed data from individual learning design experiences.
• Focused on faculty's use of reflection within their iterative design processes.

Main Results:

• Faculty use reflection to identify problems and devise solutions during course design.
• Reflection enables faculty to create responsive design solutions adaptable to course delivery circumstances.
• Faculty capture design reasoning for future iterations and gauge optimal timing for design changes.

Conclusions:

• Collaborative autoethnography provides detailed ethnographic evidence of faculty learning design.
• Reflection is a critical tool for faculty in iterative and responsive course design.
• Findings enrich understanding of faculty design processes beyond previous interview-based studies.