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Tips
for Better Teaching
1.
Organize.
Among the factors contributing
to great teaching evaluations is the level of the professor's
organization. Students universally seem to love a class session
that is well planned, clearly structured, and presented with
appropriate cues to take them from point to point. Just half
a dozen points on an overhead transparency or written on the
board might be sufficient to provide this. Or a handout, or
even a verbal announcement ("The four major concepts are
. . .") could work. I'm sure we all remember from our own
school days profs who filled up the class hour with a miscellany
of topics ("Today's topic is gallimaufric olla podrida"),
and who kept talking aimlessly until the time was up and then
simply stopped. Not all learning, thinking, exploring can be
neat and presentable in a fixed package, of course, but we often
can do better in our planning than we do.
The use of transitional markers during the presentation is also
highly effective for helping students understand parts, relationships,
and continuities. "Another piece of evidence for this,"
"In contrast to the view of the biographical critics,"
or "Now that we have examined the theory, let's look at
the application,"--statements like this help students organize
their notes as well as their minds.
2. Teach Incrementally
Studies of learning and of
the satisfaction of learners reveal that two of the best techniques
for knowledge acquisition and retention are the use of incremental
learning (dividing learning up into small, easily mastered units)
and the employment of constant feedback about learning performance.
Giving frequent homework involves both of these techniques,
while giving frequent tests (such as on each chapter or unit)
or at least frequent quizzes satisfies the goal of constant
feedback. Giving only a midterm exam and a final exam is probably
not enough feedback for most learners, especially at the lower
division level. Most students are surprisingly enthusiastic
about doing small written assignments at frequent intervals
because the assignments help them either to understand and fix
the knowledge or to learn and practice the skills they are studying.
Incremental teaching allows students to sense their own intellectual
growth and progress, and to feel a series of accomplishments,
providing them with regular ego rewards. Those who do poorly
on early exams are forced to wake up and apply themselves. And
a poor performance on any given test does not leave a student
demoralized because there is always hope for better performance
later. And a single test will not by itself doom the student
to a low final grade.
Other ideas: give a two-minute quiz each meeting over the reading
or last meeting's lecture as a means of taking roll and of encouraging
students to read the texts carefully and take good lecture notes.
Or at the end of the hour, have students write a brief statement
of the most important thing they learned or the most significant
points of the meeting. Or have each student write a multiple-choice
question covering some aspect of the lecture or reading for
the day. Collect these and use some of them for quizzes or exams.
3. Move.
As you talk, don't remain fixed
behind the lectern. Move around the room, or at least around
the front of the lecture area. Some studies have shown that
attention and retention increase in direct proportion to the
closeness of the speaker to the audience. Thus, if you move
around the classroom and approach quite closely to different
students at different times, you can keep them paying attention
better and help personalize your discussion. (You might even
look into the eyes of a student you happen to be near, lower
your voice to a personal level, and ask, "Do you see what
I'm saying, Brad?") You'll no longer be a distant talking
head or an anthropomorphic cassette player, but a conversationalist
"up close and personal," a professor who conducts
"multiple simultaneous tutorials." You'll find that
walking down the rows of desks is very educational for you,
and that it really brings the students to attention. Some will
even stop writing love letters and doing their homework for
their next class and instead they will listen to you.
And use some gestures to emphasize your points. You don't need
wildly windmilling arms, just some interesting movements. To
emphasize a particular idea, feel free to point, draw a line
in the air, clap your hands together, wring your hands, pound
the lectern or table, or use some other gesture. People will
follow any moving target, and seeing a little literal animation
from the professor helps them maintain interest.
Some gestures also serve as symbolic communicators and memory
aids. Hold your palms up to indicate the need for an answer,
hold your palms apart more or less (fish story style) to indicate
big or small problems, costs, sizes, etc.
4. Modulate
Raise and lower your voice and change its tone as you talk.
Monotones are death to any lecture. Students will write down
whatever you say in loud enough tones, and if you add an emphasis
phrase like, "And this is especially important," "Here
is the key concept," "It all boils down to this issue,"
or even, "Now write this down," you'll help your audience
pick out the gold from the bearing ore. A clear, sufficiently
loud, varied, forceful, confident voice is a handy tool for
keeping any audience listening.
As far back as the eighteenth century it has been noted that
a speaker who appears unconvinced by his own arguments is not
likely to convince others. Try to maintain a confident (not
egotistical) tone, and be careful not to trail off into a mumble
at the end of a sentence or idea.
5. Illustrate.
A really good classroom presentation should be accompanied by
two kinds of illustration: visual and verbal. Visual illustrations
can be pictures, slides, overhead transparencies, diagrams,
charts and graphs, or even lists of key points. The important
thing is to provide some visual cues to aid your audience in
apprehending the structure and remembering the content of your
talk. As students continue to come from an ever more visual
upbringing, this kind of illustration continues to gain in importance.
The other kind of illustration is the verbal example, story,
or anecdote. The best kind is the personal "war story."
Tell your students a story about something that happened to
you that vividly exemplifies the point you are making. If you
can say, "I came face to face with this idea when . . .,"
you'll make textbook concepts more real, believable, and memorable
for your students.
Abstract concepts are difficult to pin down, especially for
students whose abstract thinking skills are relatively newly
developed. If you are always ready with two or three concrete
and highly visual "for examples," you will be much
more likely to bring illumination into the darkest corners of
any given cerebral cortex.
6.
Enthuse.
Quite
a few students state on evaluations that they became interested
in the material because the professor was interested in it.
If you convey an enthusiasm for your material, you will give
it value and charm that it might not otherwise have. (Some profs
have reported ruefully on the results of going to class the
first day and saying, "I know you think this is boring,
and I'm not very interested in it myself, but let's see if we
can just get through it." Others get better results by
doing some self promotion: "Wow! What a concept! Isn't
that great?" or even, "Isn't this a great class?"
Find your own style.)
Remember that teaching is a performing art. Remember also that
students, after having watched television for tens of thousands
of hours, have been conditioned to expect signs of enthusiasm
when something important is under discussion.
7. Pause.
Never underestimate
the power of silence. Stop speaking from time to time for
fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds, to allow your students to
reflect on and consolidate what you have just said. You're
not a radio station where dead air is anathema: don't think
you have to fill up every tick of the clock with sound. An
effective silence at frequent intervals provides the rest
from mental processing that every auditor needs.
8. Ask Questions.
Find out what
your students are thinking. Have them contribute a little mental
processing to the class. The best questions are not fixed-answer
ones, such as, "When was Henry VIII born?" but more
complex ones, whether they have several answers like, "Why
did Henry break with Rome?" or even better, reflective
ones, like, "If you were an Anglican Bishop, how would
you have responded to repeal of the Test Act and why?"
Fixed-answer questions too often produce a "guess-what-the-professor-wants"
response, while reflective questions stimulate thought and encourage
creativity.
Making questions personal is often better than leaving them
abstract. For example, instead of asking, "What is the
difference between Platonism and Aristotelianism," ask,
"Do you consider yourself a Platonist or an Aristotelian?
A useful exercise is to ask a student or the class as a whole
to construct an essay outline on both sides of an issue, while
you write the points on the board. For example, ask, "If
you wanted to argue against the trickle-down theory, what points
would you make?" After discussion and outline, ask, "And
now what would someone say who wanted to rebut this argument?"
Whenever you ask a question, be sure to allow sufficient wait
time. That is, relax and give students an opportunity to think
about the question for awhile. A frequent teaching error is
to grow impatient and answer a question for the students. Once
students realize that the answer is coming anyway, they will
stop thinking and volunteering. But if you show them that you
are willing to wait them out, their discomfort with the silence
will produce results.
9. Summarize and Repeat.
It has been claimed that a
typical listener actually hears only twenty percent of what
a speaker says. That's why many TV and radio advertisers name
the product at least five times in each commercial and run each
commercial endlessly. It has also been said that the first and
last five minutes of class are remembered best by students,
so a little introducing and a little summarizing will help fix
the session's content in students' minds.
Don't be afraid to repeat an important sentence. Did you hear
what I just said? (Huh? What? What'd you just say? What was
that he just said?) I said, Don't be afraid to repeat an important
sentence. If you think for a minute, you'll see why. Remember
that test you announced four different times, only to have six
students look surprised the day you gave it?
10.
Laugh.
A sense of humor not only will endear you to your students but
will help them learn what you want them to. As the classical
poet Horace noted, the mingling of pleasure with instruction
makes the teaching more pleasurable. Or, to quote Jonathan Swift,
"As wit is the noblest and most useful gift of human nature,
so humor is the most agreeable, and where these two enter far
into the composition of any work, they will render it always
acceptable to the world." Think back on your own education,
on those professors who, because of the tightness of their stuffed
shirts, could find nothing amusing, and contrast them with those
other professors who could enjoy and share a hearty laugh, sometimes
even at their own expense. Weren't the classes with the latter
profs a lot more fun and enjoyable, and didn't you learn more
from them?
You need not (and probably should not) tell canned jokes, but
developing a willingness to laugh will be very useful. Most
students have sufficient grief in their lives so that it is
not necessary for you to add to it with your teaching style.
11.
Model.
Model in your own teaching behavior the lessons you want the
students to learn. If you want your students to become careful
thinkers, demonstrate careful thinking. Students will study
what you do even more than what you say, so you would be wise
to display the habits of fairness, circumspection, balance,
justness. Show that you understand with sympathy all sides of
a controversial issue. Show that the knowledge you are teaching
has a definite and useful impact on your life, attitudes and
behavior.
And be sure to admit freely when you don't know the answer or
when you have made a mistake. Students report feeling increased
rather than decreased respect for professors who admit their
ignorance. After all, students are not looking for someone perfect;
they are looking for someone human and genuine.
12.
Use a variety of teaching tools.
A given fact can be conveyed in any of several different ways.
A good way to maintain interest and foster communication is
to develop a repertory of information transmission methods and
use them throughout the semester. The blackboard, a flipchart,
an overhead transparency, slides, a video, a film, a handout--any
one of these could convey a concept.
In teaching vocabulary, you might use a multiple choice quiz,
a matching quiz, fill-in-the-blank quiz, a crossword puzzle.
Or have the students make a sentence from each word, write a
prayer containing all the words in the list, write a song containing
the words, teach each other in small groups, and so on.
Illustrations can be drawn from fiction, music, film, cartoons,
newspaper articles, scripture, metaphors, personal experience,
technology, art, polls, in-class experiments, in-class ad hoc
minidramas, nature, etc., etc.
Take the class outside to an anthill to teach them about society;
bring an apple to class to slice up and divide among everyone
to teach the concept of limited resources; have one student
lead another blindfolded student around the room to teach about
faith; develop a field assignment that requires students to
go somewhere and discover something, interview someone, or find
something and then come back and report on it or write it up.
In short, be creative. There are hundreds of ways to make learning
varied, dynamic, and exciting.
Thanks To:
VirtualSalt Home
Copyright 1991 by Robert Harris
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