If you were unable to attend the 1997 Upper Midwest Faculty Forum at MTU , you missed some excellent, thought-provoking sessions. I will attempt to share a few of the highlights of the sessions that I was able to attend in the next few Teaching Tips. Keynoter, MaryEllen Weimer, Professor of Communications at Penn State and leading authority on college teaching made some valuable comments about the teaching improvement process.
In a morning session entitled "Discovering and Developing Your Teaching Style," Weimer began by exploring common myths associated with teaching improvement. The "nobody knows what good teaching is," myth, typically arises because the academic community tends to devalue teaching by not considering it in intellectually robust ways, according to Weimer. In fact, there is a considerable and consistent body of research that (if we define good teaching as those behaviors and practices which positively influence student learning) identifies practices and attributes associated with good teaching. Those that cling to the myth that teaching cannot be defined, tend to defend their positions by citing an anecdotal reference or two to a teacher they once had who was "really good" (in some undefined sense) but didn’t follow any of the "rules". These arguments, because they rely on the critic’s own idiosyncratic notion of good teaching, are not particularly meaningful, Weimer pointed out.
A second often-repeated myth associated with instructional improvement, according to Professor Weimer, is that "good teachers are born, and not made." Appealing to the nature/nurture defense that "I’m just not gifted" seems to fly in the face of the research that would indicate that a considerable portion of what constitutes good teaching (i.e., teaching that facilitates learning) has to do with attitudes and skills that can be learned, practiced, and improved upon.
Weimer detailed the consistent pattern of teaching methods or attributes that has emerged from the research which seems to be positively related to student learning. Teaching which leads to student learning 1) is well-organized, 2) demonstrates the teacher’s enthusiasm for the subject matter, 3) is thought provoking and stimulating, 4) demonstrates the teacher’s mastery of the field, and 5) is clearly understandable. These attributes, which appear over and over, in the research and general pedagogy literature, lead Weimer, in her keynote speech, to a discussion of broader issues related to the entire college teaching enterprise.
Weimer called for us, individually and as a faculty, to examine our practices and policies in four broad areas. First, have we achieved the proper balance between content and process in our teaching? Have we given ourselves over to furiously trying to "cover the material" in disciplines that are growing at explosive rates at the expense of losing the students in our frenetic pace?
Second, have we examined the issue of who typically does and who should or could hold the various kinds of power in the classroom? Does the fact that in most classes the teacher controls the content, the method, the pace, the place of learning, the interaction that takes place in that place, all the rules and regulations, and ultimately evaluates and certifies student learning encourage and enable students to become lifelong learners and active problem solvers?
Third, have we addressed the issue of maintaining academic standards by solely looking to the past rather than also to actual needs of the future?
Finally, she asked, have we examined the changing role of the teacher in the classroom? Are we locked into being the "sage on the stage" and is the only alternative to this teaching model to become the "guide on the side"?