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This article views all educational approaches as either traditional (teacher-centered) or non-traditional (learner-centered), with not much emphasis placed on differentiating between the non-traditional models. The purpose of this paper is to describe the impediments to changing one's approach to teaching and some strategies to overcome those impediments. We will also focus our attention on those educators who seek to change from a traditional approach to a more non-traditional approach to teaching. The three main sources of resistance described are the students, the administration, and the individual attempting the change. The rest of the paper describes strategies and actions to deal with the resistances encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to strengthen departmental collegiality and improve teaching, our mathematics department instituted a Teaching Polygon. Building on the faculty development idea of Teaching Squares, each member of our department visited one class taught by every other department member in a round-robin fashion during the school year. The visits were followed by structured reflection and conversations about our observations. We found that being in each other’s classrooms strengthened our sense of community as a department, re-energized our enthusiasm for teaching, and encouraged us to reflect on ways to improve our own teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]