Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Individual Difference Theory In Faculty Development: What Faculty Developers Should Know About Style, Betty Lou Leaver, Rebecca L. Oxford

Russian Language Journal

Over the past three decades and more, growing attention has been paid to the need to tailor instruction to meet the differing learning and affective styles of students. However, little has been written about doing the same for faculty.

Typically, the purpose of faculty development is to empower new and experienced teachers by providing information, enhancing self-confidence, and developing attitudes and beliefs favorable to effective teaching. Such empowerment usually requires teachers to change their teaching behaviors— and change does not come automatically or identically to all teachers. Rather, “teachers change in areas [in which] they are already primed to change, …