Perceptions of instructional excellence: A case study of technical college instructors engaged in a self-reflective faculty development program

This research is a qualitative case study of the subjective realities of teaching excellence from the perspectives of 8 instructors who teach for a 2-year technical college in the eastern Carolinas of the United States with a large percentage of underprepared adult students. These coresearchers are engaged in a faculty development program that centers on a small teaching and learning circle of scholar practitioners who are actively engaged not only in the process of teaching, but also in the process of learning as it relates to self-examination and evaluation of their own effectiveness. Intensive interviews revealed that excellence for these 8 instructors takes on a number of interrelated elements that require a fine balance between content mastery and interpersonal communication skills that rival those of a formally trained counselor. Those less tangible, more subjective elements of the teaching process were a major focus of this research. These are issues that emphasize the importance of developing a teaching self who is responsive, sensitive, and mindful of the needs of learners while continuing to be learners themselves by challenging themselves to develop more effective methods of facilitating meaningful learning. That teaching self is also a learner who is encouraged through faculty development programming that recognizes an imperative of providing the foundation for college instructors to gain the confidence required to allow and encourage confidence in others without the entanglements of authority and control confusion.