Category: Week 6 – Your Authentic Teaching Voice

I’m going to try and mix attending the CIDER conference this past week with the blog topic for this week. They might mix like oil and water, but like one of the presenters said, “We use prompts to focus discussion; but, if someone wants to speak what is on their mind, they will have no problem ignoring the prompt to do so.”

I was happy to see the readings were mentioning Parker Palmer. As part of another class, we read Palmer’s The Courage to Teach. He talks about being an authentic teacher and showing your passion for the subject. After all, it is the subject that we are teaching that we are truly passionate about. It is how we express that passion to our students that matters. Not everyone can be that super energetic and charismatic in front of a class. It is important to find a teaching style that maximizes how one expresses that passion. If you can carry the attention of a class through a lecture, have at it. If you’re more of a reserved person, then finding a student centered style of teaching is perfect. It creates less of a focus on you, and more of one the subject. When looking for a new pedagogy to use, it is easy to get caught up in how cool they are.

This past week I was at the CIDER and there were a lot of really cool pedagogies presented there. The most engaging one that I experienced was reacting to the past. It is a role playing game using specific events in the past. You are given character sheets with information on your position and objectives for you to be successful. There are reading associated with event that help to explain the context of the event and the significance it had. You’re going to have to trust me it was fun trying to get people to believe that cholera was being spread through the water in 19^th century London, and that it wasn’t literally falling from the sky. It was easy to want to do everything presented, just for the sake of being cool. That’s where I had to stop myself and ask, “Is this appropriate for this class?” I am all in on gamification, but the reality is that it isn’t a fit for the class I teach. What makes it even harder is knowing that I could make my own version of a game that would work for what I need. However, that takes time, and time not dedicated to my research is precious. I get the trap that is set by wanting to take the easy way out and just give students the information to have them spit it back.

When I first started teaching a course during last summer, the first thing that popped to my mind was “what type of teacher I want to be?” Do I want to be a cool teacher who is friend with all her students, or a strict one who cares a lot about every details of students learning process and does not accept any excuses. I ended up being something in between. I tried to be nice and friendly, but also fair to everyone.

During the summer, I only had 12 students, so it was easy to know them as individuals, be friend with them, and at the same time keep track of their learning process and make sure that they learned the material. All in all, it was a very pleasant experience for me.

This semester, I am teaching the same course, but this time with 185 students! And I would say that it is a totally different experience. Obviously, it is harder to know all students by their names and keep track of their learning process. And much harder to grab their attention during the class, because I am not able to monitor what they are doing in the class. One way that I use to make them focus on the lecture is to mention that the topic is very important and could be on exam! It usually works. This is where I use grade to motivate students to learn.

I think there are different ways to be a good teacher, and it totally depends on each person’s personality. Becoming a good teacher is more than just adopting strategies, it is about caring for students’ learning and trying to continuously improve the teaching process.

As humans, we mimic each other. We mimic the behaviors we see, the way we hear people talk, and the way we interact with others. Therefore, it is not a far leap to say that whom we become as teachers is likely based (at least somewhat) on whom the teachers we have had are/were. Ideally, we only mimic the behaviors, actions, nuisances, etc that we deem positive; yet, I know for a fact that mimicry is much more complicated than that. Unfortunately, while we may pick up some positive traits from others, we also pick up negative traits. Even worse, we can lose sight of whom we are by trying to be someone else.

They say that mimicry is the greatest form of flattery. And, to an extent, I understand that. If someone likes what you are doing enough to attempt copying it, it is gratifying. That said, however, our teachers should not teach us to be like them. They should teach us how to be the best versions of ourselves. Sarah Deel points this out in “Finding My Teaching Voice” where she discusses how important it is to be genuine as a teacher. Students will not respect you if they realize you are being fake – thus, if you are not funny, don’t try to be. If you are not super animated and extroverted, don’t pretend that you are. Deel further states that teachers are not entertainers … yes, teachers need to hold the attention of their students, but it is not their job to act. It is important that teachers be themselves. Your teaching voice should not be worlds-away different than your every-day (professional) voice.

That said, teachers should still be trained (cough, taught) to teach. While to some, teaching comes naturally, to others, it does not. This is one thing that baffles me about our higher education system. When I was an undergraduate, I assumed that all of my TAs were experts in the fields they were teaching. While at times I suspected otherwise (we all have had a TA or two who made us question this), I didn’t fully comprehend the fallacy behind this until I became a TA myself. I attended a brief 2 day seminar that discussed teaching and tested me to see if I could talk in front of others and relay information. But, I was not tested on my knowledge of the material to be presented in the class to which I was assigned. I was fortunate in that I have taken numerous Biology courses and thus felt relatively comfortable giving biology lectures 3 days a week. However, I still had to brush up on the basics. Since then, I have heard of many people who are assigned to TA or teach classes they have never taken before. To me, this is crazy. Students pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for a college education, and we give them people who have never even learned about the topic they are teaching? Even professors, who hopefully are experts in their fields, do not have to have teaching experience. And, sadly, this often shows. Many don’t even like teaching, and, as the saying goes:

So, what is the solution? How can we teach people to teach without them just mimicking others? Personally, I believe that the answers starts with encouraging creativity and fostering the ideal of self-confidence. People who are confident in themselves are less likely to feel the need to copy others. What are others’ thoughts?

I’m a former high school teacher and over the years have learned a lot about my teaching self. I don’t think that I ever compared myself to other teachers that I was taught by but instead focused on how to teach the content in an effective way while also managing classroom behavior. Even with the most engaging class activities that are rooted in the various philosophies and theories of education, I still found myself having to address behavior or react to classroom visitor such as an administrator. Teaching is pretty demanding and there are a lot of factors beyond teaching the content. There is engaging with students, considering their lives and the things they go through, testing, lesson planning, content development and delivery, professional development,  and other various tasks. To balance all of the demands, I needed to be organized and task-oriented. This did not always work and some days I found myself completely overwhelmed and exhausted.

When it came to my students, I would try to be open and transparent with them. I would allow them to come up with ideas for assignments and projects, we would invite in class speakers, go on field trips, watch movies, and sometimes just sit and discuss different things. I focused on their learning but also other areas such as career skills and post-secondary education.

My teaching has now transitioned from high school to undergraduate students. The parameters are a little different and there is a different level of expectation that is present. With my students that I teach now, I ground myself on being task-oriented and organized, helpful, understanding, firm but also flexible. I especially have to be task-oriented and organized because I am also a Ph.D. student with other life demands. I also try to be helpful and understanding because I know that the students have their different demands but we all have to have reasonable expectations. I have to be firm on assignment expectations, deadlines, and class objectives. But even while being firm, I allow some flexibility depending on need and how I see fit. I don’t try to be like any other teacher, I am myself in the classroom because it’s too tiring to do otherwise.

This article is interesting and inspiring. I think all new teachers perhaps feel lost when given their first course assignment or in discovering that class content did not initiate the learning process as planned. I do not have extensive knowledge or experience managing classrooms, though anticipate that in the future this role will be more prominent. And I found the author’s description of finding their voice as an educator a relief.

I say this because instead of focusing on all the ways in which teaching needs to be conducted in order to be effective – the message as I interpreted it was that trial and error are important and inevitable in developing your teaching methodology.  Additionally and importantly, this happens over time! You will not always be successful but instead it is beneficial to focus on staying true to your personality and style as a teacher and to include transparency (with regard to the ‘why are we doing this’ looks and voices of students) in all learning objectives to (ideally) enhance student ‘buy in’.

Teaching is a hugely important job and quite intimidating. There are so many variables of importance – from body language and the sound of one’s voice when conveying information in the classroom in addition to the actual course content – that it is refreshing to know that you do not have to have your style ‘figured out’ when you first begin. Rather this comes through experience and applying various tools and methods by student context. Teaching is a learning process.