In This Issue Current Issue Archives

March, 2006

The Teaching Professor - March, 2006 - Full Issue PDF
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Effective Teaching: Six Keys to Success
Obviously this isn’t the first time we’ve shared information on this topic. But it is such a fundamental part of teaching it merits a regular revisit. This particular list of characteristics appears in an excellent book that is all but unknown in the states, Learning to Teach in Higher Education, by noted scholar Paul Ramsden. In the case of what makes teaching effective, he writes, “…a great deal is known about the characteristics of effective university teaching. It is undoubtedly a complicated matter; there is no indication of one ‘best way,’ but our understanding of its essential nature is both broad and deep.” (p. 88–89). He organizes that essential knowledge into these six principles, unique for the way he relates them to students’ experiences.

A Thorny Problem: Student Deceptions
By Karen Eifler, University of Portland, Oregon
Early in my professorial career, I noticed two patterns: (1) requests for extensions on papers and forgiven absences spiked immediately prior to major breaks, and (2) dying grandparents were nearly always the explanation offered for those requests. I definitely wondered, and sometimes felt guilty, about the close correlation between expiring relatives and due dates listed on my syllabus. As e-mail became the standard mode of communication from students, I often received messages that sounded more like announcements requiring accommodations and less like requests.

Values Surveys: Linking Course Content and Students’ Lives
By Barbara A. Mezeske, Hope College, Michigan
Last week, while teaching Dante’s Inferno, I moderated a lively two-day class discussion about medieval and modern values and religion. How did Dante define virtue? How do we define it? I know why students were so engaged: the catalyst for their interest was a “sin survey” I administered the previous week.

Teaching How to Question: Participation Rubrics
By Anna H. Lathrop, Brock University, Ontario
At the heart of the Socratic method—the icon of the inquiry-based learning approach—is the art of asking the “right” question. Indeed, when we engage in casual conversation with friends, our dialogue is often animated and enjoyable—interspersed with questions that force us to engage in a spontaneous and free-flowing exchange of knowledge, ideas and reflection. In an educational context, however, without the markers of personal familiarity and natural interest, the institutional forum of the “seminar” often feels foreign, stilted and intimidating.

Objections to Active Learning
If you think everybody’s pretty much on board with the idea of active learning, think again. I was surprised to find an article that in its opening paragraph describes active learning as “a philosophy and movement that portends trouble for the future of higher education and the American professoriate.” (p. 23)

Faculty Who Can Do It All
I’ve started working on a new book, and that always necessitates lots of reading and rereading. Even though preparing a newsletter like this keeps me regularly in the literature on teaching on learning, I am always amazed and not a bit chagrined at how much I miss. I’m equally stunned by how much of this important information remains unknown, especially when it has such compelling relevancy. Consider this case in point.

Transformational Teaching…
The relatively new pedagogical periodical Academy of Management Learning & Education has a regular feature I very much enjoy and wish was part of more of the discipline-based periodicals on teaching and learning. Noted teachers and scholars in the discipline are interviewed and asked questions about teaching, learning and education. Besides being well edited and good reading, the interviews permanently record the wisdom of faculty from whom others can learn much.

Why Don’t We Teach the Telephone Book?
By Daniel J. Klionsky, University of Michigan
I don’t get it! Every fall the new telephone book arrives, filled with lots of information and with loads of new numbers, so why don’t we design a class that covers this material? Nowhere do we teach this information. Why don’t we expect folks to study the telephone book and memorize the numbers? Grudgingly, I am forced to admit that no real justification for memorizing telephone numbers exists, as tempting as it might be for me to teach this course.

How Remote Responders Affect Teaching
By Karen Lightstone, Saint Mary’s University, Nova Scotia
A plethora of literature spouts the benefits of remote responders. These responders, often called “clickers,” are handheld devices much like television remotes that enable students to respond en masse to questions posed by the instructor.