Thinking About College Teaching

Hi, I’m back after a long hiatus.

Professor Ruth Walden of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (UNC-Chapel Hill) gave me a great opportunity today. She went to the Bahamas for her son’s wedding, and she asked me to be the substitute teacher for her Mass Communication Pedagory course. The scheduled topic was Student Learning, and I jumped at the chance.

This gave me an opportunity to read some excellent articles Ruth had assigned her students to read, and I recommend them.

• “The Case Against Teaching,” CHANGE, November/December 2001, pp. 11-19.  Larry D. Spence of Penn State University argues that a 15th century teacher from the University of Paris would find himself at home in a modern day college classroom  He makes other provocative points: “We haven’t improved teaching for 4,000 years because it works so well one-on-one that we believe we understand how it works in general.” Or, “Teachers practice a superstitious ritual aimed at the imaginary individuals they think they see out there.” Or, “Our testing practices assume that students’ brains are homogenous and that they all learn the same things.” Or, “A lot of technology in education looks like bolting an internal combustion engine on the back of a horse and buggy. We get something more exciting and noisy,  but the rig can’t go any faster.” Spence proposes a solution however, saying “We won’t meet the needs for more and better higher education until professors become designers of learning experiences and not teachers.” He says they need to create learning spaces and experiences where students can learn on their own and at their own pace.
• “Taking Learning Seriously,” CHANGE, July/August 1999. Noted teaching guru Lee Schulman describes learning as “an interplay of two challenging processes–getting knowledge that is inside to move out, and getting knowledge that is outside to move in.” The first influence on new learning, he says, is not what the teachers do but what the students already know. He promotes the scholarship of teaching, work that makes our work “public and thus susceptible to critique.”
• “Applying the Science of Learning,” CHANGE, July/August 2003, pp. 36-41. Diane Halpern and Milton Hakel argue that the primary goal of education should be long-term retention and transfer–that we should be teaching for the moment when we will not be present–and “preparing students for unpredictable real-world tests that we will not be giving.” They state emphatically that “the single most important variable in promoting long-term retention and transfer is practice at retreival.”

I told the students about my favorite book about learning: THE ART OF CHANGING THE BRAIN, by James Zull. In clear and useful prose, he explains what scientists have learned about physical changes in the brain when it is exposed to new information–it relates it to what we already know. I also described an article in the New York Times (January 13, 2009) that told how MIT has done away with its old freshmen lecture classes in physics and replaced them with student-centered collaborative learning experiences.

In our discussion, we focused on how to apply those principles to teaching–to relate new material to what students already know and to give them frequent and varied opportunities to practice retreiving that stored information. It was a great experience to be exposed again to the bright young people who will be teachers of the future.

In my previous six posts, I described a number of excellent behaviors I saw while observing scores of teachers. In this post, I will summarize that topic and wrap up the blog for 2007. When I started my blog in February 2007, I had a long list of topics I planned to discuss. I am nearing the end of that list, and I encourage readers to contribute questions or their own comments. Details about the following points can be found in the earlier postings.

1. The single most important thing a teacher can do to be effective and to enjoy teaching to the fullest is to learn and use students’ names. In my early teaching days, I did not have confidence in my ability to learn students’ names, so I did not try to. What finally worked for me was to make the following statement the first day of class: “I will do whatever it takes to learn and use all of your names within one week.” That public commitment forced me to learn their names, and I found that I could do it.
2. Show enthusiasm for the topic and your teaching .
3. Practice “First in and last out,” meaning you are the first person in the classroom and the last one to leave. Start and end class on time.
4. Begin class by showing your agenda for the day and end class with a summary of what you wanted students to learn.
5. Tell students what material is important and why. Not every comment has to be important.
6. Repeat and reward students when they contribute to class discussion.
7. Tune in to students’ engagement during class and change your approach when you sense you are losing connections.
8. Actively engage students with questions instead of lecturing.
9. Show empathy for students and concern for their learning.
10. Use a variety of strategies and approaches in each class session.
11. Use appropriate movement in the classroom. Almost all movements can be appropriate if they are not overdone.
12. Use voice modulation for variety and effectiveness. Talk at an appropriate pace.
13. Wait until the end of the period to return graded assignments or exams, and discuss general points before returning the papers.
14. Make sure that what you write on a classroom board is legible.
15. Minimize your dependence on written notes, especially notes that you carry.

A few other bits of advice:

• Do not play with keys or other items. Remove them from your pocket before class.
• Do not engage in any behavior that is repetitive and distracting.
• Do not address the class as “you guys.”
• Avoid weak transitions such as “any questions?” or “okay?”.
• Don’t carry a water bottle while you are talking and do not take drinkis or food into the classroom–especially if students are supposedly prohibited from doing so.
• Do not talk to the board while you are writing on it.

That is not everything about teaching, but it is a good start.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a happy and great year of teaching in 2008!

Tom

This shows one attempt by the faculty at one university (UNC-Chape Hill) to define letter grades.

Definitions of Grades

These definitions were adopted by the UNC Faculty Council in 1976.

The Council reiterated that the purpose of grades

is to identify degrees of mastery of subject matter.

Moreover, those grades have specific meaning

with respect to mastery of the material:

Outstanding mastery of course material. Students earning an “A� have performed far above that required for credit in the course and far above that usually seen in the course. The “A� grade should be awarded sparingly and should identify student performance that is relatively unusual in the course. The “A� grade states clearly that the student has shown such outstanding promise in the aspect of the discipline under study that he or she may be strongly encouraged to continue.

Superior mastery of course material. Students earning a “B� have exhibited mastery clearly above that required for credit in the course. The “B� grade should represent student performance that is strong and very clearly above performance that is generally held to be satisfactory. The “B� grade states that the student has shown solid promise in the aspect of the discipline under study.

Satisfactory mastery of course material. The “C� grade should reflect performance that is satisfactory on all counts and that clearly deserves full credit for the course. The “C� grade states that, while not yet showing an unusual promise, the student may continue to study in the discipline with reasonable hope of intellectual development.

Mastery of course material that is unsatisfactory or poor along one or more dimensions. Students achieving a “D� have exhibited incomplete mastery of course material but have achieved enough to earn credit for the course. The “D� grade states that the student has given no evidence of prospective growth in the discipline; an accumulation of “D� grades should mean that the student would be well advised not to continue in that academic field.

Unsatisfactory mastery of course material. Students earning an “F� have not demonstrated sufficient mastery of course material to earn credit for the course. The “F� grade indicates that the student’s performance in the required exercises has revealed almost no understanding of the course content. A grade of “F� should warrant an adviser’s questioning whether the student may suitably register for further study in the discipline before remedial work is undertaken.

I thought it was important to evaluate student writing and to demand good writing even in a course that was not considered to be a writing course. In my Evaluating Student Writing (2) post, I described an example of a writing assignment in a media planning course. Readers who are familiar with advertising courses will know that such a course is considered more of a quantitative and analytical course than a writing course.

Nevertheless, I felt I had an obligation to help students learn good communication skills in that or any other course. Such skills are important and serve students well, regardless of what they do after graduation. I also believed it was impossible to separate content from communication and presentation. Careless writing is seen by many as an indication of careless thinking as well; mistakes in grammar raise doubts about mistakes in analysis or calculation.

I found it was better to give positive rather than negative reasons for my emphasis on good writing skills. Instead of telling students poor writing would keep them from being considered for a job, I told them good writing would improve their chances and open many more doors for them.

However, I don’t think you can factor writing into the grade for a course without helping students improve their writing. Here’s how I structured my course with a writing assignment and instruction and practice in writing.

I gave students an opportunity to write an assignment without having it count in the course grade. Prior to writing their media plan, students had to write a media diary in which they recorded and reflected on their personal media exposure for three days. That assignment gave them an excellent foundation for their media plan as well as an opportunity to see my standards for writing.

I read and graded the diary very strictly and wrote a “grade” at the end. Many students were careless about their writing and were surprised to see grades of D or F. When I returned the papers, I spent an entire class session reviewing common writing problems and solutions. I made my PowerPoint presentation available on the course Web site. (Students knew the presentation was available before they wrote the assignment, but not many looked at it.)

When they wrote their media plan, they knew that careless writing would negatively affect the grade, and their writing performance improved noticeably from the ungraded diary to the graded media plan. I did not get a single complaint about stressing writing skills in a “nonwriting” course. Former students wrote to me after graduation to tell me how their writing skills had been noticed and appreciated by employers.

In this post, I will discuss some things I learned about exam format and administration.

I created a vertical space on the right side of each exam page and asked students not to write in that space, That gave me room to write scores for individual answers. I summed those for the page and wrote the total in a box I drew in the bottom right corner. When I totalled a student’s score for the complete exam, I went through the pages and summed the page scores. I always did that twice for each student to make sure my total was correct.

I used a blind-ID procedure to allow me to grade exams without knowing students’ identities. On a separate cover sheet, students printed their name and personal identification number (PIN) issued by the University in lieu of their Social Security Number. Students also signed the University Honor Pledge on the cover page. They wrote their ID number on the first page of the exam. When they completed the exam, they turned in the exam and cover page separately–but in the same order.

I graded exams question by question–grading the same answer for all students at the same time. After I totalled individual scores, I ranked scores (using a spreadsheet), calculated the mean and median, analyzed the distribution of scores and determined the class grade distribution. I then attached cover sheets to exams–meaning I determined grades before knowing how individual students performed.

On the day of the exam, I passed out cover sheets in advance, but I did not distribute exams until the class period had officially started. To be fair to all students (especially those who had another class or obligation the next period), I set a deadline of five minutes past the normal ending time and insisted that all students stop working at that time. I had more flexibility for final exams and was able to give all students the maximum time they needed.

During the exam, I allowed students to use regular calculators but not calculators on cell phones, which had to be on the floor with their books and other materials. I stayed in the room and carefully monitored students at all times. On some occasions, like Halloween, I passed around a basket of candy for students.

This blog is about college teaching. I will post pages with my thoughts and experiences about various aspects of teaching. I am motivated to do this because I wish I had known more about teaching when I started. My postings will be based on 35 years of teaching in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My comments will also be based on work I have done in teaching graduate students about teaching and leading workshops for other teachers. I hope this will be an interactive blog with comments and questions from readers.

Please email me at <tbowers@email.unc.edu> if you have questions or issues you would like me to address.