THE SECRET TO GREAT TEACHING – FOLLOW-UP

I recently finished reading Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.   One of Leonardo’s primary characteristics was that he would grow curious about something (the tongue of a woodpecker, for example, or the swirling pattern of flowing water) and become so obsessed that he would want to learn everything that could be known about the topic.   I think I am picking up that trait when it comes to the secret (or secrets) of great teaching.   It is probably a topic that I could spend a lifetime exploring. 

I posted a blog recently on this site about the secret of great teaching.  My proposition was that great teaching requires great goals.   Any person who wants to become a great teacher (or great at anything else for that matter) needs to establish truly great goals. 

I received several emails from readers (jhoyle@richmond.edu) talking about either great goals or great teaching (or both).  I always love hearing from other teachers.  

After some thought, I want to add a second secret for great teaching.   Here it is:   I think it is virtually impossible to be a great teacher without some effective method of communicating with students (beyond the classroom).  

--I believe you can be a good teacher without an outside method of communications.  

--I believe you can be a great lecturer without an outside method of communications. 

--I believe you can be an extremely popular teacher without an outside method of communications. 

Nevertheless, I do not believe you can be a great teacher without some independent means of communicating with your students.   Great learning requires some amount of interaction beyond the typical 150 classroom minutes per week.  

Although the first class of my fall semester is not for another three months, I have already emailed my new students several times in order to start guiding them toward becoming the students that I want them to be.   If I wait until the first class to begin creating that influence, the battle is probably already lost.   However, if I can give them some hints in advance, if I can provide them with reasons to believe the material is worth learning, if I can assist them in becoming effective learners and successful students, the odds of a great semester skyrocket.   That requires communication that starts well before the class begins.

As an example, I sent the following email to my students this morning.   In it, I want to combine my two teaching secrets—great goals and effective communications.   Notice in the first part, I am trying to help them identify specific goals (rather than dreams) that really will help them improve as students.  In the second part of the note, I am trying to influence their attitudes.   I want them to view the challenging nature of my class as a positive and not as a negative.   In learning, a good attitude can make all the difference in the world.  If a student has the right attitude, this job gets much easier very quickly.

If you have email addresses for your next group of students, what kinds of communications can you use over the summer to help ensure a great fall class?

**

Email to my students:

(1) – Comment Number One.   I maintain a teaching blog and have done so for years.  I write about teaching and how I believe it should be done.   In my latest posting, I talk about my thoughts on the secret to great teaching.   As I see it, the secret of great teaching is having great goals.  In this essay, I include the following lines, which I thought you might find interesting.   “I am 100 percent sure that it is impossible to be great without great goals.  In fact, I think that is a limitation that students also have.  They have average goals and are then disappointed when they earn average grades.”

As you ponder the upcoming fall semester, do you have (a) great goals, (b) mediocre goals, or (c) no goals at all?   For most students, the answer is somewhere between (b) and (c).   Then, in December when they get their grades, they are frequently disappointed.   “I’m not sure why I didn’t do better,” is a refrain that I hear often.   I suspect one of the reasons is that they simply had no goals that inspired and guided them to do well.  

Okay, I already know the most likely response, “I have a goal of making an A in Professor Hoyle’s class.”   That is NOT a goal.   That is a dream.   To me, that is a real problem for great education.   Students have dreams that they mistake for goals. 

A goal sounds something like this:

--I have a goal of studying 10 hours each and every week in Professor Hoyle’s class.   I’ll keep a diary and see if I make it.   No matter what is happening, I will have no week where I spend under 10 hours in class preparation.

--I have a goal of walking into class with good answers for 75 percent of the assigned problems and adequate answers for 25 percent of the assigned problems.   I will never never never walk into class without a legitimate answer because I will never understand what is happening in class.

--I have a goal of answering any extra assigned problems that come from Professor Hoyle (this is a common occurrence) within 48 hours and immediately going to see him if I cannot get the answer in a reasonable period of time.   If I am still struggling, I’ll ask for an additional problem so I can keep practicing.

Listen, if you just set these three goals right now and stick with them, I think you’ll do great.  I make no guarantees, but these are great goals.   This process is not rocket science.  Do the work.   “I have a goal of making an A” is a dream.   You need to have goals that you can put into actual practice every single day of the semester.

It is not required but if you are interested in reading my posting on great goals, here is the URL:

http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-is-secret-to-great-teaching.html

(2) – Comment Number Two – Back in April, at our Senior Recognition Dinner, I was named “the Most Challenging Professor” for the entire school.   Is that good or bad?   Sometimes, it is hard to tell.

I went to the gym near my house this morning.   On a big sign out front, they had posted this sentence, “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”   I realize that most of you will be juniors in college this fall.   For me, college has one major purpose:   To help you make the transition from being a high school student to being a well-adjusted, thoughtful adult.   If you didn’t want to change, if you really wanted to stay a high school kid for the rest of your life, you could have saved a lot of money by not going to college.

Here’s a question that I would like for you to ponder over the summer.   Which of these two statements sounds like you?

--Yeah, within reason, I really do want to be challenged.

--No, I am perfectly content not to be challenged. 

I think you will do better if you walk into my class and honestly say to yourself, “I am no longer a high school student.  I am ready to be challenged.” 

Something to consider:   If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.

**

My two secrets to great teaching.

--Have great goals that guide and inspire you.

--Set up a system of effective communications with your students so that you have a way to guide and inspire them.

WHAT IS THE SECRET TO GREAT TEACHING?

The semester is over or ending.   The academic year is over or ending.   It is a great time to pause and consider what you liked and what you didn’t like.   In sports, the teams post wins and losses which makes evaluation easy.  Teachers don’t have the luxury of such a clear-cut scoring process.  Some serious thought is necessary to know how well it all went.  How can it be improved?

In assessing the past year, don’t dwell on either the good or the bad.   Think about the year and celebrate the good stuff and consider what changes might have limited the bad stuff.  Most of us will have another chance to do this all again in the fall.  What can we take away from the past year that will help improve our teaching?   There is nothing to keep us from improving and now is the critical time to consider the changes that will lead to that improvement, especially as you get ready for next fall.

A few weeks ago, I participated in a video interview here on campus.  It was a PR piece.   Some of the questions dealt with my years at the University of Richmond.  Others had to do with my thoughts on teaching.   My favorite question was, “What is the secret to great teaching?”   I had some idea of what the questions were going to be so I had taken a few days to consider my answer.

Before I share my thoughts, I have two questions for you.

First, has anyone ever asked you that question?   Or, have you ever heard anyone directly address that question?   My point is that perhaps we don’t have more great teaching because we never really consider what that means.   Over the years, I have been to many conferences, presentations, and the like about various aspects of teaching, but I do not remember anyone saying, “Let’s talk about great teaching—what does it mean and how do you get there?”   If you have a pedagogy committee at your school, suggest they have that conversation.      

Second, is a more obvious question – how would you personally answer that question?  Before you read my response, how would you have answered a question about the secret to great teaching?   In truth, your opinion ought to be more important to you than hearing what I have to say.  

(This is a pause point while you think of your answer to the second question above.   If you are not willing to come up with an answer, that might indicate that you really don’t care about great teaching.)

Okay, now that you have come up with your answer, here is approximately what I had to say.  

“I am firmly convinced that the secret to great teaching is having great goals.  Great goals will not guarantee great teaching, but I don’t know how anyone can hope to be a great teacher without great goals.   I think too many people have average goals and then wonder why they are not great teachers.   If you have average goals (or possibly no goals), there is no chance of greatness.   I am 100 percent sure that it is impossible to be great without great goals.   In fact, I think that is a limitation that students also have.   They have average goals and are then disappointed when they earn average grades.  That is probably easier to see in our students than it is to see in ourselves.”  

“I write a blog about teaching and I occasionally write about my end-of-semester goals.   On the first day of class, at the middle of the semester, and at the end of the term, I am always shooting for one goal.  It never leaves my mind.   Here it is:   On the last day of the semester, I want to hear my students say, ‘I never thought I could learn so much.  I never thought I would think so deeply.  I never thought I could work so hard.  And it was fun.’  Whatever I accomplish as a teacher, I believe it is because I have those goals firmly in mind and try to make sure everything I do is directed toward achieving them.”

Okay, those are my goals because they work for me.  Between now and next fall, you should identify goals that work for you.  If you have not set great goals, then it is time to do so.   Here at the end of the semester, you have the opportunity to look back and consider what you accomplished.   What goals did you have and were they able to push you toward great teaching?   Before you consider changing your teaching, think about changing your goals.   How could you modify your goals for next fall to push you even closer to great teaching?

I guess that is the point of this essay.  How can you modify your goals to push you closer to great teaching?   It's a question that is worth repeating.

The topic of “great goals” is very interesting to me.  It just seems obvious that you cannot achieve greatness without developing goals that go beyond mediocre.  Start listening as people talk about their goals.

I read an article recently in the Wall Street Journal about Arsene Wenger, the manager of the Arsenal soccer team in London, a team that plays in the Premier League.   I know little about soccer as a sport but I do know that fans in Europe take their soccer (“football” as they would call it) seriously.   Wenger is retiring from the Arsenal team after a long and often legendary career.  

What I found interesting was that the article talked about his philosophy as a soccer manager, “I help others express what’s inside them.  I didn’t create anything.   My permanent battle in this job is to draw out what’s beautiful in man.”  

The whole idea works for every teacher but I really liked that last sentence.  Education often seems like Marine training where you want to work the students into exhaustion.  Wenger’s thoughts have a positive feel that is especially appealing to me.   Too often, this past semester, I found myself annoyed at students who would not live up to my extremely high standards.   Perhaps, I needed to think more about drawing out the best in them.   I’m not ready to abandon my “think, learn, work” goals but maybe they need some modification.  When the learning process is working perfectly, when a student is beginning to catch on, it truly is beautiful to behold.   I want more of that beauty.   And, I want to fully appreciate it when it happens.

So, even if I don’t change my goals, I am going to try paying more attention to the beautiful elements of being a teacher.   It is way too easy to stay annoyed at students who don’t always work as hard as I would wish.   Teachers do not have to be perpetually irritated.   Perhaps, as I tackle this job again in the fall, I will be better able to move toward great teaching if my goals push me to pay more attention to the beautiful side of this whole teaching process.   That is going to be an adjustment to my goals for the fall – to better see the beauty of being a college teacher.  

But, that is me and is not really relevant to you.   How are you going to modify your goals so they will be great enough to push you closer to great teaching?