Month: October 2017

One of the greatest impacts that people can have in life is through education. It plays a vital role shaping tomorrows leaders and future professionals, as consequence teaching cannot be taken lightly. Under this scope, it is critical to develop an appropriate teaching approach due to the monumental effect that professors might have on students’ life.

In my attempting and exploration to answer the How of my last post, I ended creating my personalized teaching model, which I named “CAR” (create, acknowledge and remember). The idea of this model was to identify the key aspects to determine my own teaching style.

Create:

As teacher, it is critical to create comfortableness with what we are teaching. This is referred to the preparation and familiarity with the topic. In addition, the creation of a plan B, C and D can help to be flexible. Sometimes, even under a great pacification, and as most as we want to have things under control, things happen and we must be prepared. It is critical to kill the panic, breath, chill out, and let the class take its own course.

With students, the creation of engagement and interest on the class can change the whole experience for both parties. Also, the creation of boundaries are the guidelines to set expectations, and responsibilities form both sides.

Acknowledge:

As teacher, is fundamental to acknowledge that the role is to facilitate and guide the process of learning. The need to refine and update, this two will help to enhance my teaching methods and change what is not working to create a smooth teach-learn process.

With students, to acknowledge their efforts and achievement to maintain the class motivated.

Remember:

As teacher, remembering to put all the rules and cards on the table at the beginning of the course. Furthermore, let the students decide and be part of the game. Which means that students can get involved in the process by suggesting, changing and proposing. Furthermore, it is crucial to always be aware of the “PPE” of teaching (passion, preparation and energy).

With students, that by nature a human being is unique and different. So, there will be a notable variation among students, with different skills and backgrounds. This last, underlined the need to incorporate different methods to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to learn and develop the desire skills.

Finally, to have an accurate answer of the How: Just do it!

It might sound as a Nike advertisement, but it is completely true. I would never know if the model described above is effective unless I try it.

About the author,

Sofia Rincon Gallardo Patino, hate to wash dishes and do her laundry.

Two weeks ago I borrowed this book from my advisor. This book is pretty old, but still gives a lots of useful advise from how to design a course to how to do a lecture. My advisor knows now I’m getting started to write my teaching philosophy. As a result, he told me we have to spend some time in our every meeting to discuss about teaching. Ahhhh~~ so nice of him……

Anyway!! Let me get back to the topic of this week!

Instead of thinking about what kind of teacher I want to be, I would like to first think about what kind of people I wish my students can be after they graduate. Because the primary goal is to prepare them for  their future career, I list a few characteristics and skills that I aim to helping them to develop in my courses:

curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, solid background, self-learning ability, confidence, a sense of achievement, perseverance, carefulness, patience.

Among all of them, the most important one is to help them enjoy a sense of achievement during their learning process!!! I believe this is the key to other things because a sense of achievement will give them confidence to discover new knowledge, exhibit their curiosity, use their imagination, create and present their own opinions in front of others. In other words, learning should be fun for my students! The second two important things are to provide them solid background and to help them further develop perseverance, carefulness, patience, and more importantly self-learning ability! I don’t expect that all knowledge they learn in class are useful  for their future career, or they can still remember when they really need to use it. What learning in college most benefits them is let them know how to deal with  a problem, how to make a right decision, where to find the resources, how to overcome difficulties and frustration, how to do work under pressure, how to express their own opinion but also respect comments from others and etc.

In summary, I think the learning process is actually more important than the knowledge delivered in class. College is highly likely to be their last education in their lives. During these four years, we need to teach them to become their own teachers so that they can learn new things on their own when it’s needed.

But… How to make my students have the above mentioned skills and characteristics?

Oh well… I still haven’t figured it out yet… :p

After finishing my BS in Civil Engineering, I started as a lecturer in a University (A) in Bangladesh. I started teaching lab classes mainly. I did not have any training on teaching. This type of training is not available back in my country. One of the major reasons for choosing to teach over any other industrial job that time was that I was planning on applying to the US for my higher education. For international students applying to the US for graduate school, there are requirements of GRE and TOEFL/IELTS. I was planning for the US and had to take these specialized tests. So a job in teaching was the perfect option as it takes less time and effort compared to an industry job. So this gave me more preparation time for my higher education. My teaching career started and I was getting confident in teaching. One of the things that I did was to prepare carefully before the class. Apart from this, I used most of my time for GRE/TOEFL/application process. I tried to stay friendly with the students and do my job in explaining things in the simplest possible ways. After six months, I moved to University B, which was one of the best private engineering schools in my country and I was excited to be there. I  started enjoying teaching more. The students were sharp and I spent more time in preparing for classes. I stayed friendly and kept a welcoming environment in the class. I understood that students liked me but was not sure about the quality of my teaching. I taught there for eight months before moving to the US for my masters back in August 2013. During my masters, I learned the basic things of my discipline in more details. I started having a bad feeling about my performance in teaching back in my country. At that time I understood that after completing my BS, I was not knowledgeable enough for teaching in a University. I felt like that I would have done better if I had my MS before starting teaching. The most important thing to me in teaching is to create a friendly environment in the class where every student feels welcome. I had a teacher back in Washington State University who used to ask questions in the class. Once he asked me a question which I did not have any idea of. So I tried to say something on that. I realized that my answer was 180 degree opposite to the right answer. Yet, the professor connected my answer with the correct answer. I really found that way of teaching very encouraging, where there will be no right and wrong answer. The teacher will give same weight to every student’s opinion. My teaching philosophy thus involves a friendly and welcoming environment for all students where every student will feel excited to share their opinion.

Marcia Baxter Magolda’s theory of self-authorship, though widely used for understanding college student development, aptly applies to the idea of teaching authentically. Baxter Magolda’s theory has four phases: following formulas, crossroads, becoming the author of one’s life, and internal foundation (Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016).

Following formulas: self is defined by others (parents, authoritative figures, etc.), adhere to rules because it’s the norm

Crossroads: start to develop personal beliefs and opinions, but unsure how others’ beliefs and opinions impact you

Becoming the author of one’s life:  making life decisions based on personal beliefs and opinions

Internal foundation: solid sense of self, able to act through personal ideals, while also understanding that everyone has personal beliefs, and relationships should have mutual respect

The route to becoming an authentic teacher seems to follow similar phases. As new teachers struggle to impress students, they rate their teaching only on how students react to them (do they like me or hate me?). Teachers may read about appropriate techniques, or “formulas”, but there is no personal touch to their teaching. Eventually, teachers may start to develop their own methods and attempt to implement them more in the classroom. After this, teachers could start to move away from the idea that they need to be popular, and instead use certain techniques because they fit with their personal style and ideals. Finally, teachers might develop a level of confidence that allows them to act authentically in the classroom. They might teach a certain way or talk about specific things not because they think they’ll score popularity points with students, but because they believe it’s an important lesson. Also at this stage, teachers will understand that students learn at a different pace, have varying interpretations and opinions, and unique personalities.

I’ve used Baxter Magolda’s theory of self-authorship to understand some of my own life decisions, and I’m excited to apply it more to teaching methods. Woohoo! Give it a try!

Patton, L. D., Renn, K. A., Guido, F. M., & Quaye, S. J. (2016). Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice (3rd edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Sarah Deel’s piece resonated with me. I am very much exploring my own voice and classroom management style this semester. I tended to keep the national security and international security courses I taught at arm’s length last year, yet this year my fingerprints are all over the syllabus, course content, assignments, approach to the content, and to the management of the classroom. While this makes me feel more comfortable teaching the Arab-Israeli Dispute course, it also opens me up to productive frustration and disbelief, as was the case with my session last Thursday.

The session last week was hands-down the most depressing experience I have had in front of a classroom. My students lacked the kind of engagement I sought, and mostly seemed apathetic to what I view as a very provocative topic: the Adolf Eichmann Trial. We covered the 1950s up to the 1960s, ending with the Adolf Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem in 1961. For me, this trial represents one of the ultimate provocations for reflecting on notions of justice, injustice, right, wrong, and relationships between individuals and wider systems. (to clarify, the Israelis learned Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal with a part in genocide, was living in Buenos Aires, so they capture him in 1959, then bring him to Israel to stand trial. His defense was basically, “I was a cog in a machine, I had no choice.”)

From my perspective, anyone with a pulse should have a view on some aspect of this case, whether it relates to justice, injustice, intersections of individuals with wider systems and structures, among others. Yet only about seven of thirty-seven students really felt compelled to contribute. I was in awe. I posed questions, such as “is his defense plausible?” “Did the Israelis have a right to breach international law to retrieve, then try him?” “Is his execution justice?” “How do you define justice or injustice?” “What is an example of injustice to you?”

Obviously, I did not pose all those questions at once, but after a few students chimed in. Yet it was the same handful of students who offered their thoughts. The rest of the class was silent. It is hard for me to fathom being in any room, where someone would not have a view worth sharing on this situation. While I did not break down or berate them, I told them that their task as individuals is to consider issues of justice, injustice, and consider their roles and views on issues, such as this.

I walked out of the class disoriented. I could not believe individuals could be so apathetic or indifferent to something of such import. For me, questions of justice and injustice – both in the immediate moment and the residue from the past – as well as the ways individuals connect to wider systems are the fundamental questions that frame my research and in many ways, inspire me to teach. “How could I fail to inspire students to recognize the importance or even get them to offer any reflections on such an issue?” In a way, this was both about what happened in the classroom and about so much more.

I’ve done a lot of reflection on that session with valuable assistance and input from several people. I’ve pondered those questions: “what went wrong?” and “what could I have done better?”

This leads me to the main reason for the above reflection: the more we as instructors situate our voices and ourselves in the courses we teach, the more those “hiccups”, shortcomings, or failures affect us. Those moments of silence are seared into my memory, but this simple fact also makes them incredible opportunities to retool my approach.

Yet in wrestling with the approach to the next session, I do not want the megachange Papert asserts as a remedy. I need to linger on those shortcomings (not throw everything out (although sometimes that may be necessary)), and continue to explore ways that may provide the meaningful engagement I seek. Occasional shortcomings and failures in the classroom are the natural order of things for instructors – not merely because we may be stretched extremely thin because we take four grad classes and sit in on a fifth – but the failures also represent the most powerful learning experiences. We cannot just discard those shortcomings, we need to dwell on them for a moment to recalibrate (and do so again and again) until we reach the desired results in the classroom. In this way, discovering our “authentic teaching voice” is (perhaps a never-ending) iterative process.

When I was in middle school, my parents told me that being a lecturer at college is the easiest job on earth. You can talk to students freely in 50 min and then leave the classroom to enjoy life. Since then, I have dreamed about becoming a lecturer in university with all the respect, authority, and most importantly an easy and cozy life. Once I was admitted to the university, I found that not every teacher is cool and charming. Instead, boring teachers with unchangeable tone can be the best lullaby. Some teacher’s voice is so low that I cannot hear from the 5th row, whereas another small portion of lecturers speak too fast that I can barely catch up with their pace. That was the first time I felt that being a good teacher is not easy from a student’s perspective.

Going to graduate school gives me more opportunities to get involved in teaching. Last year, I was a teaching assistant for one semester. In this course, the instructor was in another campus, which gave me a rare opportunity to present in every class and act as the mediator in between. The first few class went smoothly, but the situation got tougher as the teaching content became more difficult and complicated. Though the instructor was fully prepared before the class, students still had lots of questions during the class, which greatly hindered the class progress. As a PhD student seating in the classroom, I felt all the knowledge was quite easy and should be understandable, so did the lecturer. Still, as a 4000 level class, students were made up of seniors and master students. The master student tended to be more experienced whereas seniors were struggling for the coursework. In the end, the teacher slowed down the pace for undergrads, and everyone is happy.

Now I cannot help imagine what I should do if this is my class. How to approach to all students at different levels? Like Sarah wrote in the “Finding My Teaching Voice”,

The more I understand of my students, the less important it is to me that I treat them identically. They don’t enter my classroom with identical backgrounds, and they won’t leave it with identical understanding, no matter what I do.

I always believe that no one should be left behind. But simplified the class content or slowing down the class pace is definitely not my preference. But what is the more efficient way to deal with students with diversified background? Back in China, students are categorized into various classes based on their current knowledge level and learning capabilities (e.g. learning speed), especially in high school. Then students with similar background will be taught together with quite good results. However, besides potential discrimination, this approach is still not ideal since one-time exam-based categorization is not accurate. Sometimes, I think about pairing students into two-people small groups, usually with one learning much faster and the other feeling quite miserable in catching up. The class will still be taught at the normal pace, but paired students can help each other after the class. The assessment will be performed on the group basis, as two people will get the average score for their individual homework, quiz, and exam. Through this way, smart students will not feel boring about class content while no one is left behind.

I have not taught any class yet, but I have heard lots of stories about teaching since my grandmother and my mother are both teachers. My grandmother used to be a mathematics teacher in a middle school. The school had requirements for each teacher such like the average score of the class should reach 85. And math is such an important subject because all kinds of high school have this subject in their admission exam and everyone tried to gain a higher score. My grandmother was a very harsh teacher and always gave many assignments. She complained that some students were lack of motivation especially those who had poor performances. She found that hard to raise their interests and made them involved in the learning process. My mother is a music teacher in another middle school. I would say music class would get more active interactions with students because it’s a more “fun” subject than math. My mother arranged some of the classes to get students share the music they liked. These classes were the most popular part because all the students feel involved. In order to make the classes more fun, my grandmother adopted the method like my mother used to get students share some puzzles regarding specific chapter. Students got very excited about this procedure and lots of discussion were occurred after the share meeting.

In Professor Fowler’s article, he/she mentioned: Always engage with your students; do not do something “to” them, or “for” them, or “at” them”.  I think this is a key factor that every teacher should pay attention to. Teachers may always consider how to get their voice be heard in the class and neglect that the students also prefer to be heard. It is not very different to prepare a syllabus and the slides for lecture. The challenging part is to give the class in an interesting and efficient way.

I also find the tips mentioned in Professor Fowler’s article very helpful, especially the performance of teaching part. It may be helpful to consider myself as a student and consider what I want to obtain from a class. Teachers always want their voice be heard in the class and require students to make notes about each key learning point. On the other hand, students also want their voices be hear. If teachers could handle it better, the learning process would be far more fun!