Author: Diane Baird

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University

Keywords: Teaching, sociology, University of North Carolina, feedback, excellence, reflection, World Wide Web, commercialisation

Article style and source: Moderated. Original ultiBASE publication.

Contents

• Introduction
• Interview

Introduction

Interview

Let me explain why I said that a role model is not a good idea, then I can tell you about the preparation. The problem with the role model is that some of the techniques that are good to use in teaching are very hard to learn by just observing somebody, because they are subtle. People tend to assume that teaching is intuitive and obvious and that it is a normal, every day behaviour. I tell my students that you can spend a lot of time reading about teaching practices, but reading is no substitute for practice. In my classes we do readings in educational psychology and other pedagogical reading, but I also spend a lot of time with them on actual practice. You can't do it simply by watching. Unreflective observing just doesn't work.

I use simple techniques like pointing out what to look for in effective teaching. Students may have never thought about this before. But they discover when they watch for specific behaviours, they suddenly see them and realise their importance.

For example, many instructors ask a question and then don't wait long enough for students to prepare to answer. Instead, instructors simply answer the question themselves. To counter that tendency, I recommend an old trick. Count to ten, slowly, during which time students will process the question and come up with an answer. At the end of ten seconds, at least a few students are ready to answer the question. Waiting, being patient, makes all the difference in the world.

Yes. There are lots of simple things, common techniques you can use. For example, I recommend writing the students' own words on the blackboard. I write out exactly what a student says, in the words they used, rather than paraphrasing the answer in my own words. Using the students' words validates their voices and shows them that their contributions are being taken seriously. In fact, at the end of class, I often look back and realise that the students' contributions have taken us to a higher level that I had originally planned!

It is very difficult to understand good teaching if you haven't been told by somebody to look for these things. I often discover that when students go out for their practice teaching, they refer back to these behaviours. Thus, I really try to give new instructors practice in using these behaviours.

That's very difficult. I think I would focus on the process. I believe a person who is excellent at teaching is always striving for excellence, and is never completely satisfied. Such a person always keeps track of how things are going. For example, by using systematic feedback via comment cards. After a week or two of teaching, I ask students at the end of a class to take five minutes and write me a note on what is going well in the class, and what things they would like to see improved. I also make notes to myself on how the class is going, at the end of a teaching day.

Excellence is being pursued when a person is constantly looking for feedback, constantly keeping track of what has worked, what hasn't worked, and trying to do it better next time. Excellence is not something you can achieve as a static state; instead, .excellence is a never-ending quest. Excellence involves one's sense of identity. You can point out that somebody has done an excellent job, but I would be more satisfied if I felt that this person was constantly finding ways to do a better job.

Yes. Some people point to instructors whom they claim are grand lecturers. They claim this without any feedback at all from the students, and they say that person is an excellent teacher. But what they mean is the person is an excellent lecturer, as if that in itself is sufficient for an excellent teacher. Instead, I would say that excellent teaching has to involve feedback from students, and modification of one's teaching in light of the feedback received. Teaching involves a loop, from instructor to students and back again.

Well, I can speak to that in several respects. I can speak to it from the point of view of what I have actually done. In my undergraduate classes last term, I used the web. I posted daily summaries on the web, and also posted the best term papers on the web. I posted assignments and instructions for papers. I used it as a channel of communication with students.

This was kind of an experiment. In the spring (1997) semester I will be using something called `The Mobile Classroom'. One of the tools is a Web site called a `Discussion Forum'. One person can put up a comment on the course home page and other people can respond to that comment. The page is laid out so that you can follow the thread of the discussions; first you seel the original posting, and then all the replies, rebuttals, suggestions, and so forth. You can sort the contributions by author, date, or thread of the argument. It is a very good way to get students to engage with the material, outside of the classroom. That's what the value of this has been. It's one way to get students to see that the learning process doesn't just take place inside the classroom.

A bigger question is being raised about the impact of commercialisation. A lot of faculty members have relied on lectures to transmit information to students, but that mode of transmission is now out of date. I'm referring to the `sage on the stage' mode, where students essentially act as stenographers, with information going from the instructor's notes to the students' notes, without passing through the students' brains!

Students can do their own searching, using instructor guidelines, and get much more information than they can get from a lecture in class. They can go to the Web itself and get much more recent materials and information. It may not be thoroughly digested, but it's out there for them. So the excuse that we used to have in the old days for teaching via a kind of one way talk is just obsolete. Students are able to access information just by sitting down at a computer and surfing the Web, and they can do it a lot faster than faculty can talk!

So, commercialisation of information has arrived. You don't have to pay for a lot of it, and a lot is currently available, but you need a very powerful search engine. What this means for the nature of education is that universities have to think, `What's the value of what is going on in the classroom? What's the value added by what an instructor does?

There is often an uneasy balance between teaching excellence and research productivity. What do you think universities should do to make both endeavours easier to achieve?

Norms are starting to change. At the departmental level, for example, changes are occurring in how junior faculty are treated and in how the senior faculty as a unit convey to junior faculty the value of teaching. A lot of these ideas have affected the tenure process. At the university level, a number of things are happening, such as awards for teaching, and the creation of centres to promote teaching and learning. I'm impressed with the number of Web sites around the country where there is university activity in this regard. People are recognising that there is a science to teaching.

You have now done quite a lot of cross-cultural work in cultures that are different from the American one. You made the comment that many 'active learning strategies' transcend cultures. Why do you think that is?

I had a minor in psychology as a student, so I guess I am entitled to do a little psychologising. I do think that there is a desire to master one's environment, and a desire for active engagement with one's environment. I think that, as humans, we are required cognitively to keep exploring, to stay active.

So you are saying that there are some universal qualities in the teaching/learning process that transcend cultural considerations?

Yes, it's amazing to see in activities I carry out in workshops overseas how similar people are in what they enjoy in the learning process. Active involvement is always exciting to see. But often, in college classrooms, learning activities are often boring, mind-numbing affairs. If we can get a majority of our colleagues to turn things around and focus on active learning, then we will get students coming out of colleges with higher expectations. And they will challenge their instructors to do better!

When students get a chance to get involved, what they have to say is often fascinating. Students can be very pro-active. To repeat, I think active learning is a basic characteristic of the human species: people are more satisfied if they have an active role in the learning process.

One last question: what is your next challenge?

I look forward to playing second fiddle to my grad students on the research front. I hope to push them up to senior author and demote myself to junior author! I look forward to playing the role of teaching champion in the department, especially with junior members of the Faculty. I'm looking forward to a new colleague, joining us in the fall. I've already helped her design a course syllabus and put up a Web page.

Interview recorded on 20 December 1996.

Howard Aldrich's Home Page includes notes on the courses he teaches, current research projects, publications, working papers and his selection of useful links. Of particular interest is his Sociology 380 Home Page: Seminar on Teaching Sociology, Spring 1997

Researchers hooked on teaching, to which Howard Aldrich is a contributor, is reviewed on ultiBASE.

Howard Aldrich's Recommended Viewing.

About the author