Tomorrow's Professor Blog

Folks:

The posting below was developed by Ron Brown professor of physics, emeritus at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo to as he puts it” explain my “success” as a teacher upon receiving a teaching award. It has since been used in the readings for a seminar course that his university president (Warren Baker) used to teach – the President’s Seminar, “Science, Society, and the University”, which I coordinated for a couple of years.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: A New Set of Lenses for Looking at Colleges and Universities

Tomorrow’s Professor

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FIVE SHORT STORIES ON TEACHING

In thinking about this activity called teaching, the following has occurred to me: The best we can do – either as individuals or as a university – is create the learning environment and then offer the opportunity for an education to those who choose to acquire it. But ultimately, the emphasis has to be on learning and not on teaching.

Consider the following five short stories – personal vignettes, actually – that are loosely related to this peculiar enterprise we call education.

* In 1972, Richard Feynman was awarded the Oersted Medal for his outstanding contributions to physics teaching at a national meeting of the American Physical Society. He had been asked to talk about what makes a good teacher. He began by saying that while thinking about the talk, he decided that he didn’t know how to teach. So instead of talking about teaching, he would talk about physics – the structure of the proton – to this audience of a thousand physicists. And he gave one of the best research talks I have ever heard – stripping away the details in order to focus on the essential elements of the line of reasoning. He was, as usual, exuberant and supremely clear in his presentation, developing the arguments, speculating on the outcomes of the work and on the possible implications. Although I am not an elementary particle theorist, I could follow the essential arguments and came away enriched by the insights into that discipline and his work. And the particle theorists undoubtedly saw connections or conclusions or possible future lines of inquiry they had not previously seen. It was so very clear why he was awarded the Oersted Medal.

* I saw Richard Feynman again fifteen years later – only three months before his death, and obviously very ill. The occasion was a physics teachers conference – his last professional meeting. He was a panelist in a discussion on physics teaching. What made the event so very special, however, was the discussion after the meeting. There were a dozen or more of us gathered around Feynman reviewing some of the day’s discussion when someone handed him a long copper tube and a small object to be dropped down the tube. And once dropped, it fell …s o s l o w l y…. not at all what one might have expected. “It must be magnetic,” said Feynman of the object being dropped. Of course it was, we all knew, since that was a fairly standard lecture demonstration of how a moving magnet can stimulate eddy currents in the copper tube and hence dissipate some energy which in turn slows the magnet’s fall. What was magic was the almost childlike way he played with the magnet and tube. He was clearly delighted by the interplay of physical concepts involved. Then someone asked what would have happened had the tube been one of the new superconductors instead of copper! The mood of the group suddenly changed from light to serious – a new physics question had just been raised – one none of us had considered before. In the animated discussion that followed a variety of speculations were offered – with supporting arguments and counter-arguments. What fun! Then David Goodstein, also of Caltech, made a pivotal observation – and the answer became clear. “Of course!”, said Feynman – with that great excitement that comes with new insight into an interesting question.

* I had lunch with a friend and colleague just prior to the birth of his first child. He told me he was very excited about the prospect of becoming a father but that he hoped that he would not “do a number” on his kid. I said that of course he would do a number on his kid (all parents do) – it’s just a question of which number.

* When my son was about five, we were walking along the cliffs overlooking the ocean. “Dad, can you tell me what makes the waves?”, he asked. I told him I didn’t know if I could explain it to him – that it was quite complicated. “But will you try?”, he responded – as if the limitation were mine and not his.

* Finally, during a physics class last year in which I was describing the motion of some object (a projectile, if I recall correctly) by first demonstrating the motion, then drawing the force diagram, writing the equations of motion – and their solution, and sketching the graphs of the position as a function of time and of the trajectory, a student asked what would have happened if the problem were changed in some way (maybe by including air resistance, or something). I proceeded to show the effect of the change in the problem – in the diagram, in the equations and the solution, and in the graphs of the motion. I looked around and the class was both attentive and very anxious! I think my students were rather concerned that they were expected to be able to quickly go from problem statement to description, solution, graphs, and interpretation just as I had done. So I stopped and asked how many of them enjoyed music. They all raised their hands (but had no idea why I asked). I then followed by asking how many played musical instruments…fewer hands. Then how many could read music … still fewer hands. And how many could sight read the music and play it on their instrument … fewer still. Finally, I asked how many could read a musical score and hear the music. One hand remained. Interpreting physics problems and reading music are very much alike in that they are both learned skills – and you can learn anything you want to learn. What you learn depends ultimately on you.

There are a number of lessons in these stories: You teach best what you understand deeply – and are passionate about. You should teach the principles and the lines of reasoning, the goals and the possible outcomes and implications. Don’t underestimate your audience. Expect a lot from your students – the best of them deserve to be challenged – and each can learn anything he or she wants to learn. Expect a lot from yourself as well. Teaching excellence requires that you remain a student – learning, stretching, questioning and remaining “childlike” in your curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. Learning about one’s universe is a lifelong endeavor – and there will continue to be surprises and new insights for teacher and student alike. We as teachers are very much like parents in that we have influence on our students … the only question being what kind of influence that will be. Finally, all knowledge, like all education, is ultimately driven by the questions asked. Our task is to pose the right questions – and help our students learn to ask the right questions.

Excellence in teaching ultimately has little to do with the mechanics of the process (i.e., it isn’t algorithmic) or the number of students we have or whether we hand out course syllabi or how many tests we give or how we grade. It has to do with creating the desire to learn and then establishing the environment in which the learning can flourish.

Folks:

The posting below describes a new multi-disciplinary curriculum using Wal-Mart as a case study. It is by Elizabeth Cohn, Ph.D. (ecohn@erols.com). Copies of “Wal-Mart: A College Curriculum” are available at www.walmartwatch.com/curriculum. Faculty members are encouraged to send comments on the curriculum, as well as additional readings or assignments they use to teach about the issues raised in the curriculum, to . The full curriculum is available at: [www.walmartwatch.com/curriculum].

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Five Short Stories on Teaching

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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NEW MULTI-DISCIPLINARY COLLEGE CURRICULUM ABOUT WAL-MART

Written for college professors. Wal-Mart’s multi-faceted impact on society means that this curriculum reaches across academic disciplines, including Political Science, Sociology, Economics, Business, Management, Urban Planning, Geography, English, Labor Studies, American Studies, International Relations, Global Studies, Environmental Studies, and Women’s Studies. This curriculum uses Wal-Mart as a case study to examine: Business and management decisions, Labor and the American economy, Global supply chains and market forces, Democracy and capitalism.

Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, is praised and vilified with equal passion. Fortune magazine named it the most admired company in 2003 and 2004, while newspaper editorials lament “Wal-Martization.” Consumers praise its low prices while unions challenge the fairness of its business model. Communities across America are debating the pros and cons of welcoming new Wal-Mart stores. And Wal-Mart itself, from its outpost in Bentonville, Arkansas, has entered the debate full-force, pouring millions of dollars into public relations and image advertising.

What both admirers and critics of Wal-Mart agree on is that Wal-Mart – by virtue of its size, scale, and talent for innovation – is changing the world, or at least accelerating changes underway as a result of globalization. As the largest private employer in the United States, Wal-Mart sets the standard for wages and working conditions in retail, with ripple effects in other sectors. As the nation’s largest grocery store, toy store, jewelry store, and third largest pharmacy, it affects rival businesses, large and small. And in its quest for “Always Low Prices,” Wal-Mart has helped push manufacturing overseas and revolutionized the global supply chain in the process.

The public debate over Wal-Mart is just beginning. New books and academic studies on the subject, or related subjects, continue to be published. And a growing number of college professors are incorporating this subject matter into their courses.

To contribute to a better understanding of these profound changes in the world economy, Wal-Mart Watch, a campaign of the Center for Community & Corporate Ethics, has published Wal-Mart: A College Curriculum, written by Elizabeth Cohn. The Center was established in January 2005 to study the impact of large corporations on society and develop a set of standards for responsible corporate behavior. Elizabeth Cohn has a Ph.D. in International Relations from American University. She has published on U.S. foreign policy and Latin America and taught for the last ten years at Goucher College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

“Wal-Mart: A College Curriculum” is a 37-page, multi-disciplinary curriculum designed for college and university professors to incorporate into their undergraduate courses. The material is structured not as an integrated course curriculum, but rather as a series of five modules that allow faculty to select the parts that pertain to their own areas of teaching. More than 70 carefully selected readings offer a variety of perspectives – some supportive of Wal-Mart and others critical. The curriculum also includes introductions to each module, discussion questions based on the readings and suggested assignments.

The first module provides a brief overview of all of the issues that can be addressed by studying Wal-Mart, and then narrows the focus to the students’ personal experiences with Wal-Mart. It can be used as a general introduction for those who have several weeks to devote to a Wal-Mart case study or as a cursory exploration for those who wish to devote only one class session.

The following four modules use Wal-Mart as a case study to examine:

* Business and management decisions: How Wal-Mart has shifted power from producers to retailers, through technological innovation and market dominance;

* Labor and the American economy: How Wal-Mart’s labor practices affect wages and benefits within the retail sector and beyond, and raise important questions about the division of responsibility between corporations and government;

* Global supply chains and market forces: How Wal-Mart reflects and drives changes in the global economy, with emphasis on China’s new role as the manufacturing center of the world;

* Democracy and capitalism: How local governments, small business, community groups, and citizens respond when Wal-Mart enters their community.

This curriculum examines the above trends and the problems they create, as well as different responses and solutions – such as citizen campaigns to make Wal-Mart more accountable to community stakeholders; labor protections, whether enacted through legislation or union representation; and social auditing of overseas factories and sourcing practices.

At the heart of this curriculum are fundamental questions about the political, economic and social direction of America and the world. Wal-Mart’s size and impact worldwide make it the ideal vehicle for a serious discussion of urgent questions of public policy and corporate responsibility. The guiding question, as Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr. posed it at a town hall meeting in Los Angeles, concerns “the proper role of business and government in assuring that capitalism creates a decent society.”

Wal-Mart’s multi-faceted impact on society means that the curriculum reaches across academic disciplines, including Political Science, Sociology, Economics, Business, Management, Urban Planning, Geography, English, Labor Studies, American Studies, International Relations, Global Studies, Environmental Studies, and Women’s Studies. Although interdisciplinary in nature, each module is generally geared toward certain disciplines as follows:

Part I: Interdisciplinary overview
Part II: Business, Management, Sociology
Part III: Sociology, English, American Studies, Women’s Studies, Labor Studies
Part IV: Economics, International Relations, Global Studies, Sociology
Part V: Political Science, Urban Planning, Geography, Environmental Studies

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Elizabeth Cohn has a Ph.D. in International Relations from American University. She has published on U.S. foreign policy and Latin America and taught for the last ten years at Goucher College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She teaches in International Relations, international political economy, Latin American politics, U.S. foreign policy, American politics, and the media and politics.

Folks:

The posting below is an interesting take on how things would look if the roles of university teaching and research were reversed. It is by Helen Sword, Centre for Professional Development University of Auckland, New Zealand. (h.sword@auckland.ac.nz) First published in Educational Developments 6.2 (May 2005). Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis

reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: New Multi-disciplinary College Curriculum about Wal-Mart

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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TEACHING AND RESEARCH: THE TABLES TURNED

Imagine, if you can, an academic universe in which the roles of teaching and research have been suddenly and magically reversed.

Faculty members emerge from the library or laboratory and heave a sigh of relief: “Thank goodness I’ve finished all my research for this year! Now I can get on with my real work!” Rushing back to the classroom, they throw themselves with relish into the job they have trained to do through years of graduate study, the labor for which they are recognized and rewarded by their peers and their institutions: the “real work” of teaching.

Committed research scholars, meanwhile, profess frustration at the inequities of the system, but their complaints fall on deaf ears. Indeed, their excessive attention to research is secretly regarded by their peers as a sign of intellectual deficiency. “If so-and-so were a truly talented teacher,” colleagues mutter to one another at cocktail parties, “s/he wouldn’t waste so much time and energy on research.” Newly hired faculty who want to pursue cutting-edge research methodologies are actively discouraged by their department Chairs, who urge them to focus on their teaching instead: “You have to think about your career, you know!”

When asked by administrators and promotion committees to develop measures for demonstrating research competence, faculty rise up in anger. “How can anyone really measure or evaluate good research?” they demand. “Research is a private matter, a matter of personal style.” These same scholars have no qualms, needless to say, about subjecting their teaching to collegial scrutiny and rigorous peer review. Indeed, they love to fly off to far-flung conferences where they can engage in lively disciplinary debates with teaching colleagues from around the world, leaving behind the drudgery of their research obligations.

Top universities maintain their international stature by offering generous funding for innovative teachers, with additional support from government and industry sources. Academic units devoted to the promotion of research excellence, by contrast, remain consistently underfunded and understaffed. University administrators do pay a certain amount of lip service to the importance of supporting stellar researchers; but under their breaths, they all recite the same mantra: “This is a teaching university!”

Folks:

The posting below gives a nice overview of the current state of service-learning at higher education instituteions in the United States. It is from Chapter One, Overview of service-learning, in Service-Learning Code of Ethics by Andrea Chapdelaine, (Albright College), Ana Ruiz and Judith Warchal, (Alvernia College) and, Carole Wells (Kutztown University). Anker Publishing Company, 563 Main Street, P.O. Box 249, Bolton, MA 01740-0249 [www.ankerpub.com]. Copyright © 2005 by Anker Publishing Company, Inc. All Rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN 1-882982-83-5. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Teaching and Research: The Tables Turned

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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OVERVIEW OF SERVICE-LEARNING

One of the central purposes of higher education in the United States is to teach each new generation of citizens the democratic ideals of the nation, build moral character, and cultivate an educated, engaged citizenry (Lucas, 1994). Building upon that long-standing tradition, a significant number of colleges have revised their mission statements to embrace more fully these ideals, and they have taken significant steps to position themselves as responsible and responsive participants in the life of their surrounding communities (Chambers & Burkhardt, 2004). The Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement, established through a partnership between Campus Compact and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) to deepen understanding of the relation of liberal education to civic responsibilities, set forth the following principles:

* A 21st Century liberal education must provide students with the knowledge and commitment to be socially responsible citizens in a diverse democracy and increasingly interconnected world.

* Colleges and Universities committed to liberal education have important civic responsibilities to their communities, their nation, and the larger world.

* Civic Engagement involves true partnerships, often between the institution and the community in which it is residing that serves mutual, yet independent interests, thereby honoring the integrity of all partners.

* Students’ service activities can best serve society and the academy when connected directly to academic work, courses, and activities. (Campus Compact, 2004)

Moreover, approximately 500 college and university presidents have now signed the Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of Higher Education, which states:

We challenge higher education to re-examine its public purposes and its commitments to the democratic ideal. We also challenge higher education to become engaged, through actions and teaching, with its communities. We have a fundamental task to renew our role as agents of our democracy. (Campus Compact, 1999)

Included in this commitment is a call not only for the university, but for the students themselves, to be civically engaged. “The civic mandate of liberal education is to develop in students the deepest knowledge base and the highest degree of critical independence possible to undergird informed, socially responsible judgments as voters, parents, consumers, professionals” (Stoddard & Cornwell, 2003, p. 44). The aforementioned presidential declarations further states:

This country cannot afford to educate a generation that acquires knowledge without ever understanding how that knowledge can benefit society or how to influence democratic decision-making. We must teach the skills and values of democracy, creating innumerable opportunities for our students to practice and reap the results of the real, hard work of citizenship. (Campus Compact, 1999)

Yet, this growing call for a commitment to civic engagement in higher education has not gone unquestioned (Colby, Ehrlich, Beaumont, & Stephens, 2003; Ehrlich, 2000; Fish, 2003; Kenny, Simon, Stamm, 2004). It has been debated whether colleges and universities should be teaching values, even those deemed essential to a democratic society (Barber, 2000; Callan, 1997; Galston, 1991; Young, 1997). We argue that there is merit in the teaching of values. Further, for many academic institutions, value acquisition is consistent with their mission statements.

Regardless of one’s stance on the values issue, we believe that the primary focus should not be on whether students or other members of the college community come to adopt a certain set of values (a prescriptive approach), but instead on whether the college and its faculty provide and teach a process for exploring and critically reflecting upon the students’ own value systems. Ehrlich (2003) states:

Those of us who teach materials that particularly lend themselves to raising moral and civic issues have an obligation to do so in ways that help students wrestle with their own moral dilemmas as well as with large social and political concerns. It is not enough simply to show that any moral framework built by reason can be criticized by reason, but rather we must also take on the much more difficult task of helping students to think through for themselves which moral perspectives is best able to answer their intellectual, personal, and social needs. (pp. 3-4)

Service-learning does provide the opportunity for students to practice citizenship and engage in value exploration, and thus is viewed by many as an ideal way to achieve the vision set forth by this goal of a liberal education. “By aiming to provide students with an active, engaged environment for deepened learning and an awakened commitment to community and civic engagement, service-learning is amongst the most progressive pedagogies” (Oates & Leavitt, 2003, p.7). It is teaching tool that fosters the development of democratic principles such as tolerance, fairness, concern and respect for others, and a sense of responsibility to be civically knowledgeable active. Such education is critical for the continuation of a self-governing society. “Service-learning contributes to returning higher education to its broader public mission: graduating students for responsible, active citizenship” (Oates & Leavitt, p.5).

Given its strong association with the renewed commitment to civic engagement, the expansion of service-learning during the past decade has been unprecedented. In the 2003 annual membership survey involving the participation of 402 campuses, Campus Compact found that 36% of students had participated in some form of service-learning (a record number since they conducted their first survey in 1987), 83% of the campuses had a community service or service-learning office to support such activity, and 25% reported that faculty involvement in service-learning has increased 10% or more in the past three years.

Similarly, according to a 2002 survey administered by The Policy Center on the First Year of College, approximately 60% of the institutions surveyed (1,000 colleges and universities participated) offer some type of service-learning experience in their first-year courses. Such growth is also reflected in the frequent mention of service-learning at national conferences of higher education (e.g., American Association for Higher Education, Association of American Colleges and Universities) and their publications.

Along with the growth in service-learning, the obligation to address the role of value exploration and values clarification is becoming increasingly clear as students, faculty, and administrators wrestle with the practical complexities and ethical dilemmas that accompany the practice of service-learning. By its very nature service-learning supports Dewey’s (1916/1997) well-entrenched maxim that optimal learning occurs through active engagement with the course material (Zlotkowski, 1998). Key elements include 1) the provision of a service by students to address a community need, 2) matching of the service activity to course learning objectives, and 3) reflective thinking. Bringle and Hatcher (1995) provide one of the most comprehensive and widely used definitions of service-learning, describing it as a course-based, credit-bearing educational experience that allows student to (a) participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and (b) reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. (p. 112)

Consistent with these definitions, educational research has demonstrated that students gain more when they fully engage in and critically reflect upon the course material. These are elements that service-learning is uniquely designed to provide (Astin, 1991; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Jacoby, 1996; Kaye, 2003; Nist & Holschuh, 1999; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Research on service-learning has also shown an impact on other kinds of learning, including increasing in theoretical understanding, cognitive complexity, and ability to apply knowledge to novel programs (Astin & Sax, 1998; Markus, Howard, & King, 1993; Osborne, Hammerich, & Hensley, 1998; Strage, 2000; Vogelgesage & Astin, 2000).

Thus service-learning, based in experiential learning, affords a unique and valuable opportunity for student value exploration and development. Students participating in community-service experiences encounter ethical dilemmas that challenge their own value systems and the ideals of an American democracy. By grappling with such dilemmas, formulating and acting upon a method of resolution, and then reflecting upon the consequences of a chosen course of action, students achieve the value clarification and civic engagement goals of a liberal education. Through active involvement in this process, the same end may be achieved for faculty and administrators. In this way, American institutions of higher education play a role in cultivating citizens committed to the public good and of benefit to their communities.

Again, research has supported these hypotheses. Service-learning does increase commitment to civic responsibility (Astin & Sax, 1998; Giles & Eyler, 1994; Kendrick, 1996; Myers-Lipton, 1996), tolerance toward and understanding of diverse others (Bringle & Kremer, 1993; Eyler, Giles, & Braxton, 1997; Juhn et al., 1999; Osborne et al., 1998), prosocial behaviors (Batchelder & Root, 1994; Markus et al., 1993), and moral development (Boss, 1994; Gorman, Duffy, & Heffernan, 1994). However, the question of how all of this happens remains unanswered, as stated below:

While many colleges and universities make explicit statements about the goal of civic engagement, few have fully incorporated the development of a student’s civic character into curricular programs, despite the research that demonstrates the benefits of linking theory and practice to an individual’s intellectual growth. Additionally, an overwhelming number of colleges and universities have within their mission statements reference to civic responsibility, without describing how this happens. (Oates & Leavitt, 2003, p.5)

In order for students to achieve the goal of greater civic engagement through service-learning experiences, best practices of service-learning (Honnet & Poulson, 1989) suggest the following is required: 1) adequate preparation for service-learning experiences; 2) demonstration of how such experiences relate to the learning objectives (e.g., tools to engage in value development); 3) an active and instrumental role in the service-learning project; and, most important, 4) an opportunity to reflect upon these experiences and place them in the context of the learning objectives and the larger mission of civic engagement.
Leming (2001) found that high school students who had ethical decision-making material integrated with their service-learning were significantly more systematic in their ethical reasoning and more likely to use an ethical viewpoint than those who participated in service-learning without this curriculum. Similar results with college students were found by Gorman, Duffy, and Heffernan (1994).

However, without clear guidelines about ethical decision-making practices, the process seems haphazard at best.

Summary

Higher education currently professes a significant commitment to a mission of civic engagement. Academe as a whole has embraced many avenues by which to connect to and benefit its surrounding community and beyond. Service-learning is ideal for this commitment to the community because it relies heavily on the proven pedagogical method of active learning. Yet it often has been assumed that by simply partaking in service-learning experiences, civic engagement will be an inevitable result for the institution, faculty, and students.

We call for the recognition and examination of the ethical challenges one faces in service-learning experiences. In order for such ethical challenges to affect service-learning practitioners in a way that fosters democratic ideals, a set of pedagogical tools is required. These tools include guidelines, or what is more commonly called a code of ethics, specific to the service-learning context. Individuals must carefully examine this code (through hypothetical applications, actively use the code when faced with actual service-learning dilemmas, and finally, reflect critically upon these experiences. That set of tools is what comprises the body of this book. We recognize that developing a code of ethics is only one of many steps that must be taken to better connect service-learning to the goals of higher education, but we believe it is a critical element without which other efforts may not be as productive.

Folks:

The posting below is by two educators, Richard M. Felder and Rebecca Brent. It continues the discussion that began with posting TP Msg. #663 THE PERILS OF POWERPOINT, on September 12, 2005. See also http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/RMF.html for a rich set of resources on science education.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Overview of Service Learning

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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DEATH BY POWERPOINT*

It’s a rare professor who hasn’t been tempted in recent years to put his or her lecture notes on transparencies or PowerPoint. It takes some effort to create the slides, but once they’re done, teaching is easy. The course material is nicely organized, attractively formatted, and easy to present, and revising and updating the notes each year is trivial. You can put handouts of the slides on the Web so the students have convenient access to them, and if the students bring copies to class and so don’t have to take notes, you can cover the material efficiently and effectively and maybe even get to some of that vitally important stuff that’s always omitted because the semester runs out.

Or so the theory goes. The reality is somewhat different. At lunch the other day, George Roberts-a faculty colleague and an outstanding teacher-talked about his experience with this teaching model. We asked him to write it down so we could pass it on to you, which he kindly did.

* * *
“About five years ago, I co-taught the senior reaction engineering course with another faculty member. That professor used transparencies extensively, about 15 per class. He also handed out hard copies of the transparencies before class so that the students could use them to take notes.

“Up to that point, my own approach to teaching had been very different. I used transparencies very rarely (only for very complicated pictures that might be difficult to capture with freehand drawing on a chalkboard). I also interacted extensively with the class, since I didn’t feel the need to cover a certain number of transparencies. However, in an effort to be consistent, I decided to try out the approach of the other faculty member. Therefore, from Day 1, I used transparencies (usually about 8 -10 per class), and I handed out hard copies of the transparencies that I planned to use, before class.

“After a few weeks, I noticed something that I had not seen previously (or since)-attendance at my class sessions was down, to perhaps as low as 50% of the class. (I don’t take attendance, but a significant portion of the class was not coming.) I also noticed that my interaction with the class was down. I still posed questions to the class and used them to start discussions, and I still introduced short problems to be solved in class. However, I was reluctant to let discussions run, since I wanted to cover the transparencies that I had planned to cover.

“After a few more weeks of this approach, two students approached me after class and said, in effect, `Dr. Roberts, this class is boring. All we do is go over the transparencies, which you have already handed out. It’s really easy to just tune out.’ After my ego recovered, I asked whether they thought they would get more out of the class and be more engaged if I scrapped the transparencies and used the chalkboard instead. Both said `yes.’ For the rest of the semester, I went back to the chalkboard (no transparencies in or before class), attendance went back up to traditional levels, the class became more interactive, and my teaching evaluations at the end of the semester were consistent with the ones that I had received previously. Ever since that experience, I have never been tempted to structure my teaching around transparencies or PowerPoint.”

* * *
The point of this column is not to trash transparencies and PowerPoint. We use PowerPoint all the time-in conference presentations and invited seminars, short courses, and teaching workshops. We rarely use pre-prepared visuals for teaching, however-well, hardly ever-and strongly advise against relying on them as your main method of instruction.

Most classes we’ve seen that were little more than 50- or 75-minute slide shows seemed ineffective. The instructors flashed rapid and (if it was PowerPoint) colorful sequences of equations and text and tables and charts, sometimes asked if the students had questions (they usually didn’t), and sometimes asked questions themselves and got either no response or responses from the same two or three students. We saw few signs of any learning taking place, but did see things similar to what George saw. If the students didn’t have copies of the slides in front of them, some would frantically take notes in a futile effort to keep up with the slides, and the others would just sit passively and not even try. It was worse if they had copies or if they knew that the slides would be posted on the Web, in which case most of the students who even bothered to show up would glance sporadically at the screen, read other things, or doze. We’ve heard the term “Death by PowerPoint” used to describe classes like that. The numerous students who stay away from them reason (usually correctly) that they have better things to do than watch someone drone through material they could just as easily read for themselves at a more convenient time and at their own pace.

This is not to say that PowerPoint slides, transparencies, video clips, and computer animations and simulations can’t add value to a course. They can and they do, but they should only be used for things that can’t be done better in other ways. Here are some suggested dos and don’ts.

* Do show slides containing text outlines or (better) graphic organizers that preview material to be covered in class and/or summarize what was covered and put it in a broader context. It’s also fine to show main points on a slide and amplify them at the board, in discussion, and with in-class activities, although it may be just as easy and effective to put the main points on the board too.

* Do show pictures and schematics of things too difficult or complex to conveniently draw on the board (e.g., large flow charts, pictures of process equipment, or three-dimensional surface plots). Don’t show simple diagrams that you could just as easily draw on the board and explain as you draw them.

* Do show real or simulated experiments and video clips, but only if they help illustrate or clarify important course concepts and only if they are readily available. It takes a huge amount of expertise and time to produce high-quality videos and animations, but it’s becoming increasingly easy to find good materials at Web sites such as SMETE, NEEDS, Merlot, Global Campus, and World Lecture Hall. (You can find them all with Google.)

* Don’t show complete sentences and paragraphs, large tables, and equation after equation. There is no way most students can absorb such dense material from brief visual exposures on slides. Instead, present the text and tables in handouts and work out the derivations on the board or-more effectively-put partial derivations on the handouts as well, showing the routine parts and leaving gaps where the difficult or tricky parts go to be filled in by the students working in small groups.1,2

If there’s an overriding message here, it is that doing too much of anything in a class is probably a mistake, whether it’s non-stop lectures, non-stop slide shows, non-stop activities, or anything else that falls into a predictable pattern. If a teacher lectures for ten minutes, does a two-minute pair activity, lectures another ten minutes and does another two-minute pair activity, and so on for the entire semester, the class is likely to become almost as boring as a straight lecture class. The key is to mix things up: do some board work, conduct some activities of varying lengths and formats at varying intervals, and when appropriate, show transparencies or PowerPoint slides or video clips or whatever else you’ve got that addresses your learning objectives. If the students never know what’s coming next, it will probably be an effective course.

References
1.R.M. Felder and R. Brent, “Learning by Doing,” Chem. Engr. Education, 37(4), 282-283 (2003). On-line at .
2.R.M. Felder and R. Brent, “FAQs. II. Active Learning vs. Covering the Syllabus, and Dealing with Large Classes,” Chem. Engr. Education, 33 (4), 276-277 (1999). On-line at .

Folks:

The posting below, by Mary Huber’s and Pat Hutchings of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching looks at the emergence of “Teaching Commons” at colleges and universities around the world and the implications this has for improvements in teaching and learning. . It is #21 in the monthly series called Carnegie Foundation Perspectives. These short commentaries exploring various educational issues are produced by the CFAT. The Foundation invites your response at: CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: Future Directions for Faculty Development

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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BUILDING THE TEACHING COMMONS

October, 2005

Building the Teaching Commons Pat Hutchings and Mary Taylor Huber

A long weekend in a hotel with hundreds of people in conference mode may not be everyone’s cup of tea but the October gathering of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning was energizing and inspiring. Now in its second year, the International Society was established to bring together educators from different countries and disciplines to share scholarly work on teaching and learning in higher education, and to discuss policy developments and initiatives that affect teaching in college and university classrooms around the world. The inaugural meeting of the group drew over 400 participants to Bloomington, Indiana, last year, and this year’s event, in Vancouver, British Columbia, attracted 650 from fourteen countries, a wide range of fields, and diverse institutional types.

As evidenced by these numbers, the idea that teaching, when conducted with systematic attention to learning, might be considered a form of scholarship has been attractive to many in higher education. And the sessions and conversations in Vancouver reminded us why. The scholarship of teaching holds special promise for improving student learning because it works within the culture of academe, inviting faculty to bring their skills, values, and commitments as scholars to their work as teachers. It’s a powerful idea, and one that the Carnegie Foundation-and scores of campuses and scholarly societies has worked hard to advance for the past fifteen years.

It is commonly said that university teaching will not improve until reward systems examine it more carefully, and give it more weight. But what we heard in Vancouver underlines what we already suspect from experience in the United States: the relationship may well be the other way around. The scholarship of teaching and learning is advancing because of its intrinsic interest and its usefulness in helping faculty address pressing issues in the teaching and learning of their fields. And in the process it is producing artifacts and results that are accessible to peers (and thus peer evaluators), enabling the kind of discussion and recognition that teaching has long done without.

The power of this approach to prompt improvement was on full display in Vancouver. For example, a panel of faculty from the sciences reported results from their experiments using case studies to teach their disciplines: improved scores on final exams, greater facility with key concepts, and an ability to make connections with other disciplines that one presenter called “three-dimensional learning.” In another session, participants heard about doctoral dissertations that include chapters on teaching and learning in the field as well as the more traditional research in the discipline. Thought-provoking comparisons were on offer as well: for example, two historians, one from the U.K. and one from the U.S. engaged in a “cross-Atlantic dialogue reflecting upon the nature of teaching and learning in medieval studies.”

The different size and structure of higher education in countries like the U.S., UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand makes it hard to compare the policy climate for faculty work on teaching and learning, but support is growing and widespread. In the U.K. this means an incredible infusion of funds-including 300m pounds (around $U.S. 530m) for 74 new Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning. In Australia, the Commonwealth government has established a new institute for learning and teaching in higher education, increased the number of national teaching awards, and, more controversially, instituted a learning and teaching performance fund, which will “reward those institutions that best demonstrate excellence in learning and teaching.” Of course, much activity is going on at the campus-level, too. For example, the University of New South Wales in Sydney has reformulated its guidelines to allow faculty to elect teaching as a major focus for promotion to even the highest academic levels. And in Ireland, at University College Cork, the strategic plan calls for “parity of esteem” for work in teaching and research. Developments on campuses in the United States include new promotion and tenure guidelines that give better recognition to pedagogical inquiry and improvement, endowed professorships in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and new roles in facilitating such work for teaching centers and offices of institutional research.

As many conference-goers pointed out, these developments are still in an early stage. Making a place for serious intellectual work on teaching and learning in higher education is a long-term agenda, and there’s much still to be done and plenty of questions still to be answered. But the conference program (which can be viewed at: http://www.issotl.indiana.edu/ISSOTL/programabs.htm) also points to the emergence of what we have described elsewhere as the teaching commons, a conceptual space in which communities of educators committed to inquiry and innovation come together to exchange ideas about teaching and learning, and use them to meet the challenges of educating students for personal, professional, and civic life.

Higher education has long fostered the robust academic commons created by scientific research and disciplinary scholarship, but until recently the same could not be said for teaching, which, for faculty in many settings, has been largely private work, guided by tradition, but uninformed by shared inquiry or understanding of what works. The ethic in Vancouver was quite a different one. The scholars of teaching and learning gathered there were keenly interested in learning from, critiquing, and building on one another’s efforts. They were, in short, building-and operating in a teaching commons.

Higher education is often likened to a battleship-a metaphor that points to the difficulty of change and its painfully slow pace. But metaphors can conceal as well as reveal, and we would argue that the image of a slow-moving behemoth makes it difficult to see the kinds of changes that are occurring as faculty around the world deploy their scholarly curiosity and skills towards understanding and improving what’s happening in the classroom on their watch.

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