FIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR TEACHING OVER THE SUMMER (PLUS A BONUS OR TWO)

 

Jackie Robinson was the first Black to play major league baseball.  I am old enough that I can remember watching him on television.  That had to be an unbelievably difficult challenge for him but Robinson was a person with style and grace and a fabulous amount of talent. 

His own words are inscribed on his tombstone,

         “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” 

I suspect that none of us will ever come close to facing the challenges that Jackie Robinson endured and conquered.  Nevertheless, his words must ring out to all of us who think of ourselves as teachers.  You and I have the wonderful opportunity to impact hundreds and thousands of lives through our classes.  If you believe Robinson’s words, that gives us the chance to mold a life for ourselves that has true meaning.  Who could ask for more than that?

 --“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

--Perhaps I am simply getting old but I cherish that opportunity more every year.

--I wish I had 50 years left to keep on teaching.

For most of us, this semester is done.  The 2020-2021 academic year is finished.  If you have read this blog for long, you know the question I ask myself at the start of every summer, “A year from now, will I be a better teacher?”  

My longtime readers know how much I believe in the power of evolution, the importance of trying new techniques and tactics to see what might make my teaching better.  It can be difficult to improve a course during the school year because everything moves so quickly.  If you and I are going to get better as teachers by next year, the foundation for that improvement must begin right now.  As I say often to my students, “Procrastination is your biggest enemy.”  Putting off the battle for improvement is probably the single most significant reason that holds us back and prevents our evolution. 

DO NOT PROCRASTINATE, SPEND TIME RIGHT NOW THINKING ABOUT HOW TO BECOME A BETTER TEACHER DURING THE NEXT YEAR.

I am going to provide five suggestions on how to get better as a teacher.  There is no need to try them all.  Instead, pick one or two just to see where they might lead you over the next few months.

Suggestion Number One:  Break through the psychological ceiling.  I rarely meet teachers who have not established a ceiling in their minds as to how good they are going to be as teachers.  They will practically chant these mantras, “I am as good as I am ever going to get” or “I am good enough for this place” or “I am as good as time will allow.”  I am never sure whether these teachers (a) actually believe this nonsense or (b) use this artificial ceiling as a convenient excuse for not working to improve or (c) believe that teaching is essentially unimportant and not worth additional effort.

Stop telling yourself such limiting stories!!  The main thing that holds any of us back is ourselves.  As Shakespeare wrote, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.”  I believe that absolutely.  It is a theme in my life.

During the summer, work on a new story for yourself, “Teaching is important.  I am having a real effect on the lives of my students.  I AM going to find ways to improve during this coming year.” 

Suggestion Number Two:  Make better use of your emotional energy.  Many of the teachers I speak with seem perpetually annoyed with something.  “Students are not like they used to be.”  “The administration does not appreciate how hard this job is.”  “I can only teach what the department tells me to teach.”  “The school has the wrong priorities.”  “The other departments are ruining this university.”

Stop and listen to yourself.  Complaining is fine and often justified.  Obsession is different.  Would the people who listen rate you as a positive or as a negative person?  How much emotional energy are you burning up by being annoyed?  Think about switching that energy to more positive channels like, “I had a bunch of great students in the spring.”  “Several students really wrote great papers this semester.”  “I truly enjoyed working with my classes, even during the pandemic.  Now and then, they were just brilliant.” 

How much benefit are you getting from your emotional energy and how much of that energy are you wasting by being annoyed at your own favorite grievances?

Suggestion Number Three:  Ask a proven talent for advice.  If you want to become a better teacher, you need ideas.  Unless you are Picasso or Bob Dylan, you probably cannot get enough interesting ideas purely from inside your own head.  I have often told my children, “If you want to have a few great ideas, then you must first seek out a whole lot of ideas.”  I think that approach is so very important for success.  Lots of ideas à a few great ideas.  Become an idea gathering machine. 

In every school, college, and university, there are professors who are known across campus for being great teachers.  Pick a few and send them an email, “I have heard from many that you are an excellent teacher.  I am trying to get better.  I want to improve as a teacher.  Can you provide me with one or two pieces of advice as to what has helped you become such a good teacher?” 

I am always mortified that teachers do not do a better job of sharing the secrets of the trade.  You never have to follow their advice, but why not seek it out?  I will bet that any truly excellent teacher can give you a couple of pieces of fabulous advice right off the top of their heads.  No one becomes a great teacher by accident.  Be brave enough to ask for advice. 

Suggestion Number Four:  Read a book on teaching.  Here is another suggestion about generating ideas.  You have a summer.  There are a great many excellent books on teaching:  Make It Stick, What the Best College Teachers Do, any book by James Lang, Teaching for Critical Thinking, and so many more.

Go to Google and type in “What are the best books about teaching in college?”  Take a few titles to Amazon and read the reviews to see what appeals to you. 

Do not read these books like they are novels.   Read 2-5 pages per day at a maximum.  Write down one or two things you learned each day from those pages.  You want to draw the reading experience out as long as possible.  You want the reading to become a type of daily devotion.  You read a bit and then you let those words bounce around your brain until the next day’s reading.  By the end of the summer, you will be amazed by how many teaching ideas you have generated from your reading and from your own reflections.

(If you have a teaching book that you really like, send me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu and tell me about it.)

Suggestion Number Five:  Focus on what you learned during the pandemic.   Hopefully, we will all go back to “regular” teaching soon.  However, we cannot abandon the lessons of the past 15 months.  We should evaluate what we had too learn quickly and consider how to make the best use of that going forward.  We should think about blending our old teaching with our new teaching. 

For example, I have never been a technology person but I am amazed by how much I learned in working with our learning management system (Blackboard).  Videos on YouTube and LinkedIn were a great help.  With a little patience, you can learn to do virtually anything. 

In addition, I have grown extremely fond of Zoom videos.  They are easy to make and post to YouTube.  Students can then review the material whenever they need a second look. 

So, as a bonus feature for this blog entry, I have made a YouTube video with a few additional suggestions for better teaching.  I used Zoom.  It was easy.  It will not look like it was made by Steven Spielberg, but I believe it gets the message across. 

And, it is unlisted on YouTube so the only way to get this extra bit of teaching help is to go through this blog.   Here is the URL.  Hope you enjoy.  It is only 11 minutes.  I am biased, of course, but I think it is worth 11 minutes of a teacher's time.

 

https://youtu.be/TOzwdtobPKc

 

Suggestion Number Six:  Write out your thoughts.   Okay, I lied about passing along five ideas.  Here is number six because I had one more thought that seemed worth bringing up.

I have long said that the one thing that helped my teaching the most (by far) was creating this blog.  For many years now, I have had to force myself once or twice each month to write about my teaching.  More than anything else over the past 50 years, that writing process has helped me improve as a teacher. 

--Because I write about my teaching, I have had to become very observant as to what is working and what is not working.  That consideration has been extremely helpful.  Good days are not accidental.  The same is true for bad days.  Watch and you will figure out what happened.

--Because I write about my teaching, I have tended to become more experimental so that I will have material to write about.  If I lectured every day, I would never have a blog.

--Because I write about my teaching, I have had to probe deeper into what is happening and why.  I cannot just dismiss a classroom or student occurrence as an aberration.  I find that I think more deeply about such events so that I can understand them myself and deal with them. 

Creating a blog is great and I would highly recommend it as long as you will force yourself to write 8-12 times per year.  However, a journal will work as well.  I think you need to write as if scores of people are going to read and think about what you have to say. 

Do not be shy.  People are interested in your teaching so start writing down your thoughts.  You will be surprised by how quickly that process will help you become a better teacher.

I added the following few lines several days after the original posting.  This morning I was reading a novel.  One of the main characters is a song writer and she says, "I write songs to discover what I want to say."  I immediately responded to her as if I were talking with a friend, "I write compulsively about teaching to explore the very depths of what I think and believe about teaching."

The Most Important Days of the Semester – Part Two

(If you would like for me to send you an email whenever I post a new blog entry, just drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu and I'll add you to my list.)

On October 1, 2017, I posted the first of a two-part blog entry on the importance of the 2-4 days after the first test of the semester.  This initial essay included an email that I sent to my current students immediately after their first test.   My assumption has long been that students are most interested in how to do well in a course as they leave the first test.   The email encouraged them to consider two specific aspects of their post-test assessment. 

First, if they felt they had not done well, I made three suggestions about what might have gone wrong.   It is hard to improve without some identification of the problem.  Students who do not do as well as they had hoped should come up with an honest ending to this sentence prompt, “I did not do well on the first test because . . .”    A vague response does not do anyone any good.  As I said in that previous essay, most students simply do not spend enough time studying.

Second, I tried to get my students to put themselves into one of four categories (confident and ready to build on that positive first step, over confident and relaxed, unhappy but ready to take on the challenge to do better, and terribly discouraged and ready to give up).   Obviously, I am trying to encourage them (whether they did well or poorly) to put on a burst of energy and enthusiasm after the first test.   It is still early in the semester.   I never want any student to feel defeated and hopeless.

The second part of my strategy to help the students make positive changes in their approach to this course comes on the day I return the graded first tests to them.   I walk into class with the papers under my arm.  However, before I hand them back, I make a few specific points about possible improvement.

I did not record my opening remarks this semester but the speech below is my best memory of what I said.   It only took a few minutes but I wanted to encourage them to start looking at the course in a different way.   Remember – my only goal is to guide the students to better learning and that should lead to a better grade.  

**

“In just a few minutes, I will return your first test which is roughly 25 percent of your overall grade so you still have plenty of time to improve your average if you want or destroy it even if you did well on this test.   We have a long semester.  This is just the first test.   Whether you improve this grade is squarely up to you.

“I often tell students that learning only occurs at three points.  I refer to this as the learning triangle.  First, learning can occur during class.  We are together 150 minutes per week.  I want us to use each of those minutes wisely to enhance your knowledge of the subject.   To tell you the truth, most students (and I certainly include this class) typically do well during class.  No one falls asleep.   Everyone attempts to answer the questions as I pose them.   People take good notes.  Students can always do better, but I am not upset by the work you have done so far in class.

“The second point on the learning triangle is all the work that students do before they arrive at class.   I assign questions and you have to decide how much time and energy you want to expend to prepare answers to those questions.   Most students, and again I would include this class in this assessment, do fairly mediocre work when it comes to class preparation.  For most, there is simply not enough urgency to push them beyond doing as little as possible before class.   I honestly believe it is hard for any student to excel unless they do excellent work leading up to class – not mediocre work and not good work but genuinely excellent preparation.   Without good preparation, it is hard to pick up the subtle but key points brought out during class discussion.   You can only struggle to keep up with the main points.  Key little nuances are just missed. 

“The third point on the learning triangle is all the work that students do after class.   As I have said before, students invariably leave class with Swiss cheese knowledge.   It looks and feels solid but is totally full of holes.  To do well, you need to spend serious time after class filling in those holes.   For some, those holes are tiny.   For others, the holes are massive.   Either way, the reason I send you problems after class is to help you fill in the holes.   When I give a test, all I am trying to do is discover the size of the holes in your knowledge.  

"Most students are good in class, mediocre before class, and absolutely awful after class.   That’s the way it usually happens.

“Some students are mystified as to why their grades are not higher because “I worked so hard during class.”  However, that is only one of the three points of the learning triangle.  If you don’t get the grade you want on this first test, remember it is my opinion that it was the quality of the work you did before class and the quality of the work you did after class that led to the poor grade.  Work on those two and I think your grade can and will improve radically.  

“I am willing to help you improve your grade if you will come my office.  But, do realize that I will probably not be addressing our 150 minutes together each week.   Typically, that goes well.   If you want to do better, you have to start looking more seriously at the other two points of the learning triangle.

“If you twant a higher grade on our second test, you will need a grade higher than ‘mediocre’ on class preparation and a grade higher than ‘awful’ on filling in the holes of your Swiss cheese knowledge after class is over.” 

**

I never like to hand back that first test without telling students in advance “listen, if you like your grade, don’t make any changes in your routine.  If you don’t like your grade, you have time to fix it and here is some advice about where you need to start putting in more time and effort.”   I believe it is unfair (at least on the first test) to give a student a poor grade (and I give plenty of them) without providing some type of framework to help them see where they are coming up short and how to make amends.  

If you can get your students to make necessary adjustments, the first test can be the key step toward turning a mediocre semester into an outstanding semester.

THE LEARNING TRIANGLE

I began giving teaching presentations about 10-12 years ago.   As I have said many times, I enjoyed that experience immensely because it forced me to spend serious time thinking more deeply about my own teaching.   I cannot begin to guess the number of times in the last few years that I have asked myself:

--What really happened in class today?  

--Why didn’t this work?

--How should I have changed what I did?

--What was wrong with that particular question?

--Why did the class seem unorganized?

--How did I manage to confuse so many students in that discussion?

All those questions eventually led me to begin writing about teaching and now I am up to over 250 pages.   And, I am still asking questions and still learning.

One of the very first teaching concepts that I ever developed for myself was “the learning triangle.”   I remember standing in front of 100 or so brilliant professors one day a number of years ago in one of my very first presentations trying to explain how the learning triangle could help their students to become more efficient.

I was reminded of this today as I contemplated giving my first test on Friday.   My guess is that a lot of the teachers who read this blog will also be handing out their first test around now.   I always believe the first test presents a good time, every semester, to stop and contemplate whether the students are progressing as you would like.   Are changes needed?    After the semester is over, there is nothing you can do to fix problems.   Why not consider making adjustments after looking over the results of the first test?

In sports, I am always impressed by basketball and football coaches who make halftime adjustments and get their team to suddenly play better.   Teachers should consider doing the same thing.   If the coaches can do it, so can you.

That brings me to the learning triangle.   Simply put, I believe that student learning is most affected at three specific points.  

--The first is how well students prepare before they walk into class.  

--The second is how efficiently the class operates.  

--The third is what the students do following the class to help organize and solidify their understanding. 

If a class is not going well, if a teacher needs to make some adjustments, then improvement in one of those three points of the triangle should help.  

Too often, we focus solely on the classroom experience.   For example, you might ask a veteran professor to observe your class and make suggestions.   And, in truth, a class can be a disorganized mess if the teacher has not spent sufficient time thinking through the step by step structure of the 50-90 minutes that make up most classes.   For example, if class coverage is not sequenced logically, the whole experience really can seem like an effort to herd cats.

However, I have long been a believer that the most benefit can be gained by focusing on the other two points of the learning triangle:   class preparation and the organizing and solidifying of understanding immediately after class.  

Class Preparation:   From my experience, a vast majority of students walk into class each day under-prepared to learn.  They have not been told what to do to ready themselves for class.   Or, they have not seen sufficient reason to exert much effort prior to entering the room.   I often raise this question and I think it is worth considering:   If students are not well prepared, what are they capable of doing during your class other than sitting like lumps taking notes?   You cannot ask a student to have a thoughtful discussion of Hamlet if the student merely skimmed the play.   You cannot ask students to provide insight into recent politics if they have not checked on the news in two weeks.   The kinds of discussions and debates that make college education so very wonderful are absolutely impossible if students walk into class under-prepared.   At that point, Socrates himself would throw up his hands.

What is the solution?   (1) Give the students very clear cut instructions on what you want them to do in advance.   Do not be vague.   Tell them the exact pages to read.   Point out the questions that you want them to answer.   Make the assignment a challenge but make it one that they can complete in a reasonable period of time.   (2) Make sure the assignments are reasonably interesting.   Ask good questions that make the students think and want to know the answer.   Don’t make learning a drudgery.   All topics can be enjoyable if they are approached in the right manner.  (3) Tie the subsequent class to that assignment in some very clear way.   If you tell a student to read the first 10 pages of Chapter 6 for class and then you never mention those pages, don’t expect the student to pay any attention the next time you give an assignment.   A student will label an assignment as “busy work” if you do not convince them otherwise.   The assignment has to tie into class in some important way.   (4) If a student does not do the preparation that has been required, you have to call them on it.   I send emails to students saying things like “I expect you to do better at our next class” or I call them to my office to find out why I am working so hard and they are not.  

Trust me – if you can increase the level of student preparation, you will be startled by how much more interesting class will become.   A lot of the burden of teaching is trying to figure out how to help unprepared students to learn.   And, that is never fun.

After Class.   No matter how smart your students are, they will leave every class with a brain full of disorganized material.   They simply cannot absorb college-level information quickly enough in class.   I always tell them that the knowledge will seep out of their brains in record time if they do not do some work very quickly after class.  

One of the best exercises is to simply ask them to write out what they learned in a couple of paragraphs.   Because words, sentences, and paragraphs are all sequential, this writing helps them to figure out how the pieces should go together.    A one page synopsis titled “What We Covered Today In Class” can be a great help to any student.   Or, perhaps you can provide some review questions or a practice problem.   

 

Since I teach accounting, I often send out an email almost immediately after class with this admonition:  “If you learned what I wanted you to learn today, then you should be able to work the following problem in 30 minutes without looking at your notes.   The answer is $385.   If you get that answer, you probably have a good handle on today’s work.   If you cannot get $385 in a reasonable period of time, come by and you and I can talk about what you missed.”  

To use an old cliché, teaching is not brain surgery.   I can promise you that if you figure out how to get your students to prepare better before they come to class and if you can figure out how to help them sort and organize the material after class, the learning will improve rather dramatically.   

And, you and the students both will enjoy the class more.

To make a halftime adjustment, focus on the points of the learning triangle.