TO BECOME BETTER, WHERE SHOULD YOU START?

 

In 1991 after 20 years in the classroom, as many of you know, I decided to change my style of teaching.  Until then, I had been a relatively traditional teacher.  I lectured about 80-90 percent of the class session and would pause where appropriate and ask questions to re-energize the students and get them engaged for a few seconds.  Ten percent of the students were always dying to try to answer every question (right or wrong) and the other 90 percent were delighted to let them.

My teaching evaluations were good.  I won awards.  However, the level of this teaching seemed superficial to me.  The students were being trained to be good note takers and tended to rely on me to do all the serious thinking.  They expected me to explain everything in minute detail.   They just seemed too passive to me.  They seemed to be obsessed with memorizing every word I spoke and would only get really interested in learning right before each new test.

I wanted something different.  I wanted to make a change.  Unfortunately, I was not sure where to start and I really struggled.  Some times that is the toughest part of making a change.

I finally decided to set some goals for my classes that I wanted to achieve.  I called these, “Goals That Would Make Me Happy.”  These became my goals in 1991 and they have remained my goals ever since.  In fact, they were my goals in class this very day.  Only after I had decided on my goals could I make logical attempts at achieving them.

1 – I would try my best every day to do no more than half of the talking.  The easiest thing a teacher can do in class is talk.  I am convinced that most teachers simply talk too much. Walk down the hall of any classroom building and stop at each door and see who is talking.  95 percent of the time, it will be the teacher.  If you truly want to engage the students, you have to get them to do half of the talking or they will fall back on taking notes.  Trust me – achieving this goal takes an awfully lot of work.

2 – I would try my best to have every student talk once or twice every day.  When students walk into every class of mine, I want them to know for sure that they will be required to be part of the conversation.  There are no exceptions.  I want the best student and the worst student to talk an equal amount each day.  I am lucky that I usually have no more than 28 students so I am able to make sure everyone talks in class every day.  You have to adjust your goals to fit your situation.  Think creatively.

3 – I would try my best to make sure that when the students talked each day they were prepared to add legitimately to the conversation.  I have had students who could talk at length about nothing.  That provides no benefit to anyone.  I didn’t want to ask them, “How’s the weather?” questions that would allow them to talk without saying something that was well thought out.  I want each student to be ready to talk like a prepared college student and add true valid to the conversation.

4 – I would try my best never to “teach” my students anything that they could memorize.  I wanted learning to be at a deeper level.  Memorization is not learning.  This is college.  I wanted them to develop their critical thinking skills and I am not sure memorization has any place in that objective. 

5 – I would try to make the class as interesting as possible.  I have always wanted classroom learning to be an enjoyable activity.  I watched a little of the Olympic figure skating this past week where the 15-year old child was put under such intense pressure.  As I watched, I reminded myself that many of my students are only 3 years older than she is.  Life has pressure.  Everyone understands that.  However, we as teachers should try to keep that pressure from being unreasonable.  We are here to help students, not crush them. 

Okay, where a teacher might go from here will depend on the teacher.  There is no pure path.  There are many ways to address class goals.  I am not trying to advocate for any particular way to teach.  Nevertheless, to me, once you establish very specific goals, only then can you consider what might allow you to achieve them. 

In 1991, I found that, until I had established these goals, I kept wandering back rather randomly to lecturing for most of the class period.  I kept coming back to the point where I was talking too much and the students were copying down too much so they could memorize all of my words.  I had to have some goals to guide me beyond my traditional method of teaching. 

What are your goals?  Start there.

HERE'S YOUR SUMMER ASSIGNMENT

As I have mentioned before, on August 7, 2013, I will be giving a 75 minute presentation about this blog at the Annual Convention of the American Accounting Association in Anaheim, California.  If you are going to be at the convention, I hope you’ll stop by and chat.   I’d love to meet each and every one of the people who read these essays.  I’ll be there for several days so let’s get together over coffee and talk about teaching.  

In preparing for this talk, I have gone back and looked at some of the 170 posts that I have written over the years.   To me, it is interesting how many of these posts push teachers (including me) to think about the last day of class and what the teachers want their students to have accomplished.   Until you visualize what you want your students to do by the end of the semester, it is hard to know how to guide them.   Over and over, you see that theme in my thoughts on teaching.   You can accomplish very little without knowing specifically what you want to accomplish.   Notice the word is not “vaguely” but “specifically.”  

One of my very favorite posts was “Training Dogs” which I put up on this site on March 4, 2010.   (It is available at http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2010/03/training-dogs.html ).   This essay talks about how people go about training dogs and makes what I thought was an obvious point:   training students uses the same basic techniques that you would use in training dogs.   It seems easy when you talk about dogs; in fact, it seems like basic common sense.   I am not sure why it appears so much more complicated when working with college students.

In this earlier essay, I ask readers to come up with 8 steps for training dogs.   They are all obvious but my very first one is:   “Have a firm understanding of what you want them to accomplish.”   Again, that seems so self-evident.   You cannot teach a dog to roll over if you are not sure what you want the dog to do.  

Unless the goal is clear in your mind, the dog will just be confused.  

Unless the goal is clear in your mind, the student will just be confused.  

I think a lot of teachers who struggle are simply not sure of their goal.   Maybe vaguely they are but not specifically.

Okay, how do you put this into practice?   I was working with one of our younger teachers this week and I gave him an assignment that might be helpful to you.   I told him to spend several hours over the summer writing a “hypothetical but absolutely perfect final exam” for his fall classes.  In other words, if the students did exactly what he wanted them to do for the entire semester, what would he want them to show him on the final exam?   That seems like a legitimate assignment.   If the students learned exactly what he had hoped for, how would they be able to show that on the final exam?    It seems to me that there really needs to be a connection between those final questions and what they ultimately need to know.

So, don’t write your final exam at the end of the semester to ascertain grades.

Instead, write your final exam now before the semester even begins as a guide for what you want your students to be able to do by the end.   Don’t be vague – make those questions as specific as you possibly can.   That's the real purpose -- to add specificity to your goals.

Okay, you probably won’t ever give this exam.   That’s not the point.   The point is to help YOU (not them) to visualize what you want them to be able to accomplish at a high quality level.

Visualize the perfect semester where every class goes great and every assignment is done well and every reading is carefully analyzed.   How would the students be able to demonstrate that they had done really well for you?  

Surely, you would not fill up this hypothetical exam with memorization questions.   That just cannot be your ultimate goal.  Well, if that’s not the goal, what is your goal?   What would be several perfect questions to allow students to show you the intense depth of their understanding?

I have an idea that this might be a very interesting summer project.   I have held before in these essays that most teachers spend way too little time thinking about testing and how it can be used to help pattern student learning.   Here’s a chance to give some deep thought to that process.

By the time school starts back in the fall, can you have a hypothetical final exam created that would enable your students to show what they know and understand?   If so, that can really serve as a road map for how you attack each day of the entire semester.   Anything that won’t get the students moving toward the point where they can answer those hypothetical final exam questions will quickly start to seem trivial to you.   And, that’s probably a good sign.

Do You Have to Be Entertaining to Be Popular?

The following link will prove that if you scare enough students over enough years, you will wind up with your picture on the Internet:


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-10/favorite-professors-richmonds-joe-hoyle

**

I think one of the most detrimental myths of teaching is that a person has to be funny or easy or entertaining to be popular with students. I think this idea has ruined a lot of good teachers. I cannot even estimate how many teachers have told me over the past 42 years “if I try to hold the line and make the students work, they will dislike me and kill me on the student evaluations. Students only want teachers who make them laugh and give them A’s.”

Students only want teachers who make them laugh and give them A’s. If that line is true, the future of education is truly bleak.

Often, I believe that line is merely a scapegoat – not always, but often. What I think those folks are really saying is “whether it is true or not, the students believe that I am giving them busy work in this class with little value and they resent it.”

At times on this blog over the past few months, I have shared (and chatted about) several of my favorite teaching quotations. They have all influenced my teaching significantly over the years.

The quote for today has had an enormous impact on my teaching career. I cannot emphasize enough how important these few words have been to me over the years—almost every single day. However, I’ve resisted including this quotation before now for two good reasons. First, I’m not sure who said it. Second, I’m not sure exactly what the person said. But, I firmly believe the basic truth of what is said here and that belief has really led me to teach the way I do.

As I remember it, probably 35-40 years ago I was reading a story about a successful football coach. I have always thought it was Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers but I cannot be sure of that. In the story, according to my memory, the coach says something like “There is something in every person that wants to be pushed to be great.”

Every person wants to be pushed to be great.

I may not know for sure who said it or even the exact words that were said but I certainly believe the sentiment. As far as I can see, almost every person needs (and wants) some amount of external motivation to push them to reach their true potential. They want to feel good about themselves but they need some help.

--Why do we hire personal trainers to tell us what physical exercises to do when we already know what we should do?
--Why do we pay teachers when we could simply read books?
--Why do we pay preachers when we do know the difference between right and wrong?

We need (actually, I think we crave) external motivation that will push us to use our talents wisely and make something great of ourselves.

--I don’t think it is an accident that the US Army slogan for many years was “Be All You Can Be.” That appeals to people.
--I don’t think it is an accident that most successful coaches in sports seem to have a drill sergeant type of philosophy. If there is a clear and desired goal, people react well to being pushed and pushed hard.

Almost everyone, I believe, wants to be great but some external motivation is usually needed. As the Bible says so well: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

I think the key is having that clear goal that says “here’s what you need to do to be great and I’m going to push you to make it happen.” Always remember: No one needs external motivation to be average.

So, if you are going to push people to work hard in your classes, you have to convince them that this effort has a genuine payback. They must believe they will become better in some way. Making a certain letter grade is not really much motivation for many people.

My own experience is that if you explain to students why you want them to do a certain amount of work (assuming the amount is fair as well as challenging) and what the benefit to them will be, they will usually surprise you with their efforts. They will not resent you. In fact, they will appreciate you. Okay, not every day but most days, people are willing to put out a real effort if they see the benefit clearly.

What’s the point of all of this? Here are some questions to consider if you want to become a better teacher. Be honest – skip the PR and do an honest self-evaluation.

--What is your goal for your students? On the last day of class, what do you really want to see?
--Is what you are asking the students to do actually going to get them to that goal?
--Do your students understand what your goal is?
--Do your students believe your goal is worth their effort?
--Are your students able to connect the work you are requiring at the moment with that goal?

It is not about being funny or easy. It’s about pushing people to be great and making sure they understand what you are asking them to do and why.