Now
and then, I come across some thoughts on teaching that I think are worth
sharing. That happened yesterday here
at the Robins School of Business. My email
to our faculty and staff is below. No
matter what the individual jobs are here at Richmond, we are all in the education
business. This place exists, at least in
large part, to maximize the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of our students. Passing information like this along to
others can help keep teaching (and the thinking about teaching) alive as an important part of our culture.
You
can do the same thing in your building.
Whenever you learn something about teaching that you feel might also help
others who face similar challenges, then pass it along. Don't be timid. Don't be shy.
**
Email
Note:
A
friend of mine here at the University of Richmond passed along the following
URL of a recent NPR discussion with Ken Bain.
Everything Dr. Bain says about teaching seems worth a few moments of
consideration so I thought I would pass it along to everyone.
As
some of you might remember, Dr. Bain spoke on campus to the Richmond faculty
about 8-10 years ago. Several of us had
the great pleasure of taking Dr. Bain and his wife out to dinner that evening
(at the old Peking Restaurant) before his talk to the faculty.
As
a true southerner, I try to have one story about everything. Here is my one story about Ken Bain (which I
have repeated countless times). That evening,
he spoke to about 50-70 faculty members.
About halfway through his talk, someone in the back asked: “How can a person become a great
teacher?” Bain stopped immediately and
responded: “Oh, is that what you want
to know? Well, that is an easy question
to answer. I can tell anyone how to
become a great teacher in just one sentence.
All you have to do is get your students to care about what you are
trying to teach them.” I continue to believe that is one of the most fabulous pieces of teaching advice that I have ever heard.
Here
is what he had to say recently on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/08/404960905/what-the-best-college-teachers-do
As
is often the case on the Internet, the comments after the article are random,
amusing, and—at time—insightful.
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