Month: February 2016

What is authentic teaching and how can we find our teaching style? I certainly believe that teaching styles is dependent on ones personality and capabilities… I have seen many cases where professors are adapting some good teaching practices in the wrong way! One good teaching practice is to ask questions in order to guide the learner to the solution instead of just presenting the solution. This could be done by posing questions such as what do you think? Why do you think that is? Are you sure? What are we missing here? etc. As much as questioning the learners is a good practice,  asking too many questions will confuse the learners! I took a course last semester in which the instructor would answer most of the questions with a question! And whenever someone responded to a question  he would say are you sure? I found that too confusing and it seemed like he was not well prepared for the class…

This is when teaching styles should be adapted to ones personality and capabilities! You cannot just try to employ teaching techniques without customizing them to your teaching style… Maybe this professor was trying to guide us to the right solution however he could have better implemented this by accordingly planning his questions rather than  questioning everything and confusing the students… Maybe he loses focus whenever he poses a question and has to ask more questions so that he can make time to get his focus back… Yes, questioning is good but the questions should be leading the student to right path!

As teachers we should have the ability to connect the theories with the reality… An interesting article in the Faculty Focus  mentioned six paths to a more authentic teaching.

1. Being sincere
2. Being true to oneself
3. Acting in the interests of learners
4. Care for the subject
5. A process of becoming

A great example of these practices was mentioned in the reading as we need to find ways to draw on the child’s vast experience of oral mathematics not teaching them things that computers can do! If we want to pose questions frequently, we should do this while we consider what the learners will be getting out of responding to these questions… Where are these questions taking them? Instead of just mindlessly posing questions so that we can convince ourselves that we have “employed” this great practice! So let’s take some of the great practices that are adaptable to our major and sincerely employ them in our teaching while we are aware of our circle of knowledge, are staying true to it, and considering what the learners need to be/are getting out of this process. Most importantly the road to success is always under construction (Lily Tomlin) so always ask for feedback from students and try to find places for improvement. One great thing that I liked about one of my Professors last semester was that he would not just rely on the departmental evaluations and would directly ask us for suggestions. I find this a great practice since it shows ones genuine care for improvement…

Becoming literate means thinking differently than one did previously, seeing the world differently, and this suggests that there are many different literacies!

I remembered when I was a bachelor; I always thought how I may teach the courses those I took. I was trying to simulate the class environments for my courses. So, I can say that I taught all courses that I took in my bachelor. I tried to find a better way for teaching courses. But I had not the opportunity to teach any course until after my master.

After my master, my supervisor suggested me to help her by teaching a graduate course. The course was Bio-instrumentation for master students who were in the second semester. At the fist perception, I was happy but I was a concern after a few days because I needed to find an appropriate way to teaching. That was my first experience and I needed to do my best performance. I knew if I could teach reasonably, I might teach next semester as well.

I brought together all my thoughts to create an innovative method of teaching. I summarized it here.

First, I searched for scientific journals and resources to find the most recent knowledge about Bio-instrumentation. Because my advisor used an old book as her reference since 20 years ago and I believed that I need to find an updated version of this knowledge. So, I found another book and introduced to the students as the reference. I also edited the syllabus based on the new reference. I was pretty sure that one reference could not be enough for a graduate course. So, I gathered several scientific papers. I distributed the total credit of the course into some portions.  The student needed to gather their grades through the semester. I remember that I removed the final exam and I considered several quizzes (I personally hated the final exams because I had felt so stressful during exams days).  I asked students to read 11 papers and write a report related to those papers. I selected review papers for this task, and then they could learn a background of devices for bio-instrumentation. After that, I designed three experiments in the laboratory using the most recent sensors and devices. The students formed their own groups and performed the experiments. This task helped them to learn team-working though some members of groups had some problems with other members. As the last assignment, I asked them to design and perform an applied project regarding biomedical engineering. They needed to collect the data from the patients in the hospitals and clinics. I taught them some topics related to instrumentation and asked them to apply this knowledge to their data collection.  In the end, they presented their projects to other students.

I asked the students to fill out the evaluation form beyond official one from the university. They stated that this way could improve their understanding regarding Bio-instrumentation because they used the knowledge practically. This experience helped me to develop my own method of teaching and test it in a real condition. Although the students were satisfied with my method, I think that it had a major problem. I did not use a standard method for grading, so it was a little confusing for the students. Of course, I graded generously because I did not want to hurt the students and I knew that this is my first experience, therefore it might have some problems.

I have never formally taught a class before. I’ve been a TA for two college classes and a third-grade class, I’ve facilitated discussion groups, been a tour guide, a tutor in many subjects, and co-led a creative writing after school program for middle school students (although almost nothing was actually accomplished besides having fun in that last one). Oh, and I definitely taught my little brother how to read and do arithmetic. My point is, I’ve been an educator of one kind of another many times in my life, but I’ve never been responsible for running an entire classroom on my own before. But I will next semester! And then maybe I’ll be a professor some day? It’s an option. But even if I don’t become a professor, educating others is a part of of many jobs, not to mention life. So here is a categorized bullet list of things I want to incorporate into my teaching:

Big-Picture Things

• I want to be intentional about what I want students to get from the class, and structure the class accordingly. I want my class to be helpful/meaningful for them in some way, whether that be in learning some specific knowledge, developing skills, gaining the ability to think about things from different perspectives, etc. I want to focus on these goals: I would rather prioritize a few key topics than try to shallowly cover lots of material.
• Seymour Papert says, in “Yearners and Schoolers,” “Geometry is not there for being learned. It is there for being used.” I like this perspective and want to keep it in mind when developing my class materials. I hope to structure my class so that students aren’t wondering why they need to “know this stuff.” I want to have the “why” built directly into the material itself.

Day to Day Classroom Stuff

• Tell students ahead of time what to expect in class. If we are having a big discussion next week for example, I want them to know about it. I want my syllabus to be as clear as possible. As a student (and a person), I like to be as prepared as possible so I will give my students that opportunity.
• Break the class up by having some lecturing, some group discussion, some bigger class discussion, videos, etc.

Physical / Emotional Aspects of My Teaching

• I won’t be very formal with my students. I don’t think I could be if I tried. I will be approachable, and smile, and encourage them to be brave in the classroom. When I think back to the teachers I liked the best and felt most comfortable around, they were the ones that weren’t overly “popular” or “fun,” but still had a friendly, informal approach in the classroom.
• Sarah E. Deel in “Finding my teaching voice” mentions that she acknowledges to her students when assignments might seem “silly” to them. I like this approach. I always appreciated when teachers would acknowledge when certain things would be silly, or tedious, or difficult. A statement like “I know this may seem ___ to some of you, but it’s important because ____.” was always appreciated.
• Be physically energetic in the classroom. This is brought up by Shelli Fowler in “The Authentic Teaching Self and Communication Skills.” I have noticed that it’s easier to pay attention to teachers and presenters when they move around the room.
• Dress sharply. I am very short and people sometimes think I’m a teenager. I may have to dress more professionally than other professors in order to stand apart from the college students.
• I have a really quiet voice. I’m going to need to work hard at amplifying! This may be a struggle for me.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more ideas about how I want to be as a teacher but this is what I have for now!

 

 

 

The readings this week got me thinking about what my authentic teaching self is, what is my teaching voice, and how it should craft it for the course I’m co-teaching next fall.  I have done some limited teaching in the past–3 labs a week for an undergrad introduction to statistics course, but at the time, I just showed up and winged it without carefully thinking about my authentic teaching self.  I feel that my performance was authentic–I was laid back and moderately funny.  I tried to relate statistical concepts to the students in a manner they understood and cared about.  I have no idea if it worked.

The class I’m teaching in the fall will be similar, but at the graduate level.  I’m teaching an introductory class in statistical modelling in the wildlife sciences.  Students will have differing backgrounds in statistics and ecological modelling, but they should be there because they want to be there–this class is not required to graduate.  I think I can take the same laid back, moderately funny approach that came naturally before.  I plan on incorporating a substantial amount of problem-based learning, which will be easy to do in this type of class.  Hopefully it will be better than this incredibly boring blog post.

Finding my authentic teaching voice is I think easier said than done. I have had a number of instructor positions in my life. Each one has in some way contributed to my actions and behaviors in the classroom. And yet I do not believe that I have truly found my voice in the classroom yet.

The questions in the reading forced me to rethink how I am in the classroom. Specifically “how can I be genuine, sincere, and fully present in the classroom”? Today I was in the classroom and I had roughly ten minutes of non-stop lecture. I had the thought that I had been rather robotically talking, and I looked at the students and noticed that they were rather robotically taking notes. Without getting to metaphysical, I felt like I wasn’t present in the classroom.

I immediately started to ask the students questions and try to engage them in discourse. The shift in tactics seemed to refocus the class and reengage them. I think that as much as I admired my professors who would give these great lectures, their voice is not mine. I had a Professor Saladino who would lecture for two hours with no powerpoints and no notes and the students would sit spellbound listening. I think that the longer I am in the classroom the more I realize that my real strength lies in facilitating a discussion.

I am excited to see the evolution of this process. As I gain more confidence and experience, I hope that my voice becomes more natural and authentic in the classroom.

I started teaching informally when I was very young. I taught Mathematics and Physics to my younger cousins when I was in high school. Very soon, I found teaching is not easy and it is not enough to master what you are teaching!
The most important reason is that teaching is not an interaction between human-robot. When you write an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) code, you teach to a machine how to search or solve the problems. We never feel worried about learning capacity of the machine or the ability of the machine to learn what we coded! However, this is very different when we teach students. Students are not machines.
There are two different streams of research in the Information Science (IS): Design and Behavioral science. In design science, researchers develop systems such as database management systems without considering the applicability of the new designs in interaction with people in a real organization’s environment. However, in behavioral science, the focus is on human interactions with systems. For example, they build theories about gender and age rule in technology acceptance and usage behavior in organizations. An organization needs knowledge about both the product and behavioral reactions in order to apply a new information technology system successfully.
I think the teaching has two different parts same as the two different streams of research in the IS. Teachers should have the enough knowledge about the material they are teaching but it is not enough. They also should have enough knowledge about behavioral theories of teaching. For example, the first lesson I learned through teaching was that encouragement will have a positive impact on learning and threating students will hinder learning. As a teacher learn more about behavior theories of teaching, he/she can teach better. I think that is why some teachers will teach very better when they gain more experience.

I should start by saying that I am definitely not a gamer and I cannot understand how games could trigger the human imagination! I believe that gaming connects us to a fake unrealistic world which at some point might separate us from our real life! There are so many other useful practices which could trigger imagination… Some of the ones that I personally relate to have been mentioned in a very interesting blog  by the Fast Company and they include:

1. Thinking in metaphors
2. Thinking in pictures
3. Borrowing from other domains
4. Introducing unrelated ideas
5. Reversing polarity
6. Finding the paradox 

As researchers I think that we have all used some of these practices for triggering our imagination and coming up with new ideas… I personally found reversing polarity and finding the paradox very interesting! By reversing polarity we can release conceptual energy and that would open our eyes to new solutions… As an example consider that the sink in your workplace is always filled with dishes… and you cannot tell whose dished they are! So trying to solve this problem you will think that it is hard to tell whose dishes are in the sink… Now what if you rephrase the problem as it’s easy to tell whose dishes are in the sink… Then this might open your eyes to an easy solution which is if it’s easy to tell whose dishes are in the sink then maybe they are personalized with the employees initials… The second interesting point for me was finding the paradox. Consider a city where people would dump motor oils into sewers and they would flow into the bay and pollute the fish habitats. Also the warnings posted near the drains are not working… instead of looking at the problem in the way that is was proposed to us we can ask can the sewer grates and signs be the same? yes! How about a grate in the shape of a fish with an unambiguous message of whatever you put down the drain goes right into the fish!

The 20th century made us believe that everything of value can be bought in a store, that the answer to the question lies at the back of the book, and that design is something only designers do. But in the 21st century, we are being nudged forward—by our customers, our employers, our economy, and by the robots nipping at our heels—to be original.

I really enjoyed all the readings from this week, particularly Sarah Deel’s “Finding My Teaching Voice” and Shelli Fowler’s “The Authentic Teaching Self and Communication Skills”. Both discuss the idea that though we are all interested in improving the current system, there is no “one way” to teach. I especially liked the reading by Sarah Deel as it reflects the thought processes through which I would assume a lot of people interested in being good teachers go. And the ultimate conclusions were that the best teachers bring their true selves into their teaching. I think this is an interesting point. I myself sort of fell into teaching. It was never something I thought of myself doing. However, during my residency, I was thrown into teaching some didactic lectures and labs. I had no idea what I was doing but decided the best way to deal with the situation was to be completely honest with my students. I was honest about myself (I too am pretty uncool and not interested in making any great sacrifices to change that) and what I knew and didn’t know. I ended up receiving some great accolades from students and even won a teaching award while there. Though I am learning and continue to learn new ways to improve my teaching style, I think my abilities to be honest are a great foundation. Like Deel, the more “myself” I am with the students, the more comfortable I am with teaching. Both readings discuss the idea that there are some common techniques that one might find useful to adopt, but there is no “perfect” or “ideal” teaching style. They are all a little different and can be equally as beneficial.

I believe your personality should be inter-weaved in your teaching style. The reading this week really emphasized that looking at techniques and strategies may not really help your teaching style. Looking at successful teachers and trying to mimic their methods may not entirely work. Different strategies might be as equally or more successful for your classroom. Explaining way you chose your style of teaching to the students or why you chose to do in-class activities will help keep the students engaged. Being approachable and incorporating students into the learning process are strong values of mine. Knowing there is not one way to approach teaching puts me at ease. I like to show my personality and try to connect with students as I teach. What I took from the readings this week is there is no specific recipe for the perfect teacher.
The readings also emphasize teaching should be flexible in nature and not static. Sticking to the material is important but, allowing time for deeper discussion can be important. Adjusting or spending more time on a content area that you see a class is struggling may be necessary. I have had experiences teaching classes of different formats. My approach to teaching each class changes based on the content of the class. I am currently a teaching assistant for a class involving an online lecture and hands on laboratory. Teaching a class with a laboratory section in a sense automatically incorporates student engagement. In order to be successful in the laboratory, students are expected to listen to the online lectures. At most, I spend a half hour providing instruction and then students learn through the hands on activities provided. At the last institution I attended, I worked with a class called Exercise and You. This was a lot more lecture based. Since this was a mass lecture class the lecturing style was much different. So far I have learned teaching involves a lot more trial and error than I originally thought. Regardless of the format of the class, I want my teaching style to be engaging, inspirational, and knowledgeable.