Teaching in Higher Ed

teaching

When it isn't quite what you meant to say

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Whoops

I have had quite a month for slips of the tongue…

In front of 50 business professionals a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about a means for measuring an organization's culture, in terms of where it falls on a continuum. I intended to use the word spectrum to discuss the method of assessment, but instead uttered the word ‘speculum.'

During a short devotional in my introduction to business class, I was quoting Albert Einstein and said, “Significant problems that we face, cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” “You must learn to think in a new way – you need a “paradigm shit” (what a difference an F would have made in that word).

After each incident, there were quite a few chuckles. My statements were not intentional, of course, but resulted in more of a sense of my humanness.

DANGEROUS WORDS

The Chronicle had an excellent article called “What Not to Say in Class During an Election Season” about a more serious type of classroom foible. I felt better about my mouthful of marbles after reading about some awful examples of hateful statements made by faculty at other institutions. After the September 11 attacks, an academic from New Mexico said, “Anyone who attacks the pentagon gets my vote.” An English professor at another university accused Muslim students of being terrorists.

OUR RESPONSIBILITY

Our role as faculty comes with an immense responsibility. Many argue that the most important skill we can teach students during their college years is critical thinking. Being too overt about our political beliefs one way or another endangers this type of intellectual development on the part of our students.

At a recent dinner with a group of students I have known for years, one of the individuals and I did get into quite a political debate. Anyone who was present might be surprised to read this blog posting, wondering if there wasn't some element of hypocrisy in my giving advice about refraining from spouting off about our political opinions to our students.

My intent with this student was to sharpen his arguments and to get him to go beyond the opinions of the news commentators he watches and to include facts in his analysis of who will make an effective president for us these next four years. The Chronicle warned about students who drop out of classes of professors with opposing views and this particular student is still quite engaged in my classes and as a leader in the student organization I advise. My respect for this student is extremely high and the additional challenge for him to have considered multiple angles of his views will be an asset to his ability to lead teams both now and in what I have no doubt will be a successful career in business.

It is a delicate balancing act. We must grow our students' critical thinking skills, being mindful of the need to argue both sides of an issue, so our nation's future leaders and voting public have the ability to do so, as well.

When it isn’t quite what you meant to say

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Whoops

I have had quite a month for slips of the tongue…

In front of 50 business professionals a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about a means for measuring an organization's culture, in terms of where it falls on a continuum. I intended to use the word spectrum to discuss the method of assessment, but instead uttered the word ‘speculum.'

During a short devotional in my introduction to business class, I was quoting Albert Einstein and said, “Significant problems that we face, cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” “You must learn to think in a new way – you need a “paradigm shit” (what a difference an F would have made in that word).

After each incident, there were quite a few chuckles. My statements were not intentional, of course, but resulted in more of a sense of my humanness.

DANGEROUS WORDS

The Chronicle had an excellent article called “What Not to Say in Class During an Election Season” about a more serious type of classroom foible. I felt better about my mouthful of marbles after reading about some awful examples of hateful statements made by faculty at other institutions. After the September 11 attacks, an academic from New Mexico said, “Anyone who attacks the pentagon gets my vote.” An English professor at another university accused Muslim students of being terrorists.

OUR RESPONSIBILITY

Our role as faculty comes with an immense responsibility. Many argue that the most important skill we can teach students during their college years is critical thinking. Being too overt about our political beliefs one way or another endangers this type of intellectual development on the part of our students.

At a recent dinner with a group of students I have known for years, one of the individuals and I did get into quite a political debate. Anyone who was present might be surprised to read this blog posting, wondering if there wasn't some element of hypocrisy in my giving advice about refraining from spouting off about our political opinions to our students.

My intent with this student was to sharpen his arguments and to get him to go beyond the opinions of the news commentators he watches and to include facts in his analysis of who will make an effective president for us these next four years. The Chronicle warned about students who drop out of classes of professors with opposing views and this particular student is still quite engaged in my classes and as a leader in the student organization I advise. My respect for this student is extremely high and the additional challenge for him to have considered multiple angles of his views will be an asset to his ability to lead teams both now and in what I have no doubt will be a successful career in business.

It is a delicate balancing act. We must grow our students' critical thinking skills, being mindful of the need to argue both sides of an issue, so our nation's future leaders and voting public have the ability to do so, as well.

How to create good first impressions in the classroom

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Tomorrow is the first day of school. Each semester, I am reminded of the importance of creating a good first impression and setting the stage for learning to occur.

GOALS

I desire for the students to:

Have a sense of gratitude: My hope is that they will be reminded of the sacrifices that were made for them to be where they are. Family members, donors, teachers, tax payers, and politicians likely made some contribution to their having access to all that higher education has to offer.

Excited about what's ahead: while it isn't easy to accomplish, having a sense of adventure about what will occur in a class is something I aspire to give students

Be challenged, yet to possess self-efficacy: Vroom's theory of motivation states that the degree to which we will be motivated is the amount of valence (how much we value potential rewards) times the level of expectancy (how much we believe we can achieve the goal).

Motivation

I want students to value the learning they'll experience in the class, yet I realize that sometimes this may not come until much later in their lives when they're able to apply it in a less theoretical way (like when they begin their career, for example). The better I can do at describing why what they're learning will be important, the more likely I can increase the valence. I also want them to perceive that they will need to work hard in this class, but that the goals will be clear and so will what it will take to achieve the class learning objectives.

TECHNIQUES

Below are a few techniques I use to begin to create a culture of learning:

Give a five-minute explanation of why this class matters. To create a sense of excitement about the learning, I strive to let them know why their investment of time and effort will be rewarded and not just when it comes to calculating their GPA.

Start on time and end slightly early. While the first day always presents all sorts of reasons why not to start on time (at our school, a varied schedule for the first day of class and the never-ending opportunities for students to get lost, confused, or otherwise not make it on time to your class), it is worth the effort to start out with a culture that says things will get started with or without them… and they'll miss out if they're late. Ending early gives the students a chance to catch me a few minutes informally after the formal class time and makes sure that I don't try to cram too much into the first class session.

Avoid reading the syllabus, but give a three-minute description of why it will be so important for them to digest. My syllabi follow the ‘course packet' format, with detailed course learning objectives, grading rubrics, and a thorough course schedule. Other colleagues follow the less-is-more approach when crafting their syllabi, but I have found it more efficient to have all the information in one place and to get it in their hands as early as possible.

Begin learning names early. Even before I arrive to the class, I print the roster and practice reading aloud the students first and last names. I circle the names of any students I have met before and write down a few things I remember about them to help reinforce opportunities to connect with them. Our school has small photos on the rosters that can be printed, though I never cease to be amazed at how quickly the students will change their looks, even over the course of a semester. I find it helps if I focus on their eyes, nose, and smile, because those things don't tend to change, despite their ever-altering hair, tattoos, piercings, hat choices, and so forth. 

Please include your suggestions for ‘first impressions' in the comments section below.

Use conditioning techniques to encourage classroom involvement

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There have been times when we all feel like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. “Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?”

Bueller

How do we get them involved? To answer that question completely would take far more time than the average attention span of a blog reader. Let me start with just one technique that will do wonders.

THE EIGHT SECOND RULE

Part of the lack of participation by our students is because we've conditioned them to believe that we don't really want them to answer our questions. We ask a question… get uncomfortable by the silence… and quickly answer it for ourselves, making it that much less likely that the students will respond to future questions.

Recognize that three things must happen before you're going to get a response to your question:

  1. The individual must hear and comprehend the question.
  2. An answer must be formulated in his or her mind.
  3. The learner must then decide if it is safe enough for them to risk failure, or giving the wrong answer.

That three-step process can take some time. I've found that if you count eight seconds to yourself (one, one-thousand, etc.), you'll never reach the eigth second before someone jumps in and responds. You can actually take advantage of a group's collective discomfort with silence and use this power to get people engaged in dialog.

I will warn you that there is one time when this technique does not always work: when you teach it to your students… I was using it once and actually got to the number eight, for the first time after decades of teaching and using this technique. It turned out that in this particular class, it related to the subject and I had told them about how to make use of the eight-second rule. They still had a hard time letting the eight seconds pass, but they sure had some big smiles on their faces when I realized I had been duped.

Let us know what other techniques you're using to get your learners engaged in the comments.

The environment in which we’re teaching today

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Studentstoday

It is staggering to imagine how different the culture and environment is today than when most of us went to school. I remember being in college and watching a friend go ‘on the internet,' which was this cumbersome text-based series of commands that I saw over her shoulder. I thought, “No thanks… I'll stick with my Apple IIe.”

Here's an amazing video from Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University with some other triggers to get us thinking…

What challenges and opportunities do you take away from watching this as a teacher in this environment?