Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative communication style, developed in the field of clinical psychology, for strengthening an individual’s intrinsic motivation and commitment to change. Within an atmosphere of acceptance, compassion, and empowerment, people’s ambivalence about change is identified and explored by evoking their own reasons to change with respect to their values and goals. Thirty years of research shows this approach to be effective in facilitating behavior changes in contexts ranging from substance abusers entering treatment to dietary changes in diabetics, medication compliance in cardiovascular disease, and increasing water sanitation practices in remote South African villages, among others. More recently, MI has been brought into the context of organizational change, including academia.
“Building an effective blended learning culture needs strategic partners across multiple campus constituents and not just faculty. Strong support from higher-up administration coupled with faculty goes a long way towards the acceptance of such alternative learning strategies across campus.” These ideas come from Sunay Palsole, PhD, associate vice provost for digital learning at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He discussed several ways to build institutional support for blended learning by working with various campus offices, and shared four specific ideas with us.
