Exemplary Teaching Practices and Philosophies
Michael A. Reiter
I have to admit to being a bit uncomfortable about giving advice or providing suggestions concerning teaching. Teaching, to me, is a very personal enterprise, and can be directly related to the personality of both the teacher and the class. This means that methods that work well for one teacher, class, or even subject may not work as well for another teacher, class, or subject. Still, among the approaches that I have tried over the years, there are three that have worked well for me and have provided noticeable benefits, so perhaps they may be useful to you as well.
The first approach that I have tried and kept is the use of open-ended, low-tech labs or field exercises for teaching science to younger students and non-science majors. When introducing students to science, I think we too often get caught up in the tools for its accomplishment and forget that science is a methodological process: an approach rather than an object (you can see this at almost any school science fair, where the kid who spent a few weeks in mom or dad's lab running gels often gets all the attention while the kid who came up with a clever way to figure out why their cat always hid during a particular time of day usually stands alone). So when I am trying to introduce science to students who may not have a lot of experience with the concept, I first give an introduction to the philosophy of science (mostly Popperian and beyond, given my background), and then early in the course I assign an extended, undirected field exercise (something similar can be done with a lab exercise) that is related to the course topic but has no predetermined "correct" result. The project is presented in the form of an observational question to try to answer, and the tools I make available are as basic as I can make them: meter sticks, graduated cylinders, stopwatches, stakes and rope, magnifying glasses, etc. The idea is for the project to be technologically non-intensive so that the students are forced to focus on the process of addressing the question rather than the equipment they must use. They are given as little guidance as I can get away with in order to allow them to try things they think will work, and the presentation of their results involves not just a review of their findings, but also what they might have changed to get a more "trustworthy" answer and what the next interesting question would be given the answer they obtained. Many students catch onto the idea pretty well, whereas others come away with little more than the notion that the outdoors is a nice place to work and spend time, but in the end I consider either outcome to be an advance from where they started.
The second approach I have found useful is to have students retake their final exams after a few semesters have passed. If you are like me and think that the true definition of learning includes retention of information for application later on, then you might like to try this approach because it has given me a lot of insight into where the strengths and weaknesses of my courses lie. In courses that have comprehensive final exams (which at DSU we are required to keep for a few years), I like to track down students from those courses and have them retake their final exams for me without preparation either as a formal test or as more of an oral conversation that hits the question topics. It takes a bit of cajoling, convincing, and even bribing at times to get students to try it (and it isn't easy!), but if you explain the purpose of the process there are more curious students out there than you might think (certainly more than I thought initially). They take the same final exam again in the same length of time, or you talk it over with them while you determine what they would or would not have been able to answer on the exam, and you compare their score now to their score from the first exam. I plot the loss of points from the first score and the percent of points retained by the number of months since they took the final, and track majors and non-majors courses separately (if I ever get enough students to participate, I will track class by class). This gives me some idea of how much of the information students are retaining from my courses, and I can see if any patterns of retention become evident (ex. students tend to remember concepts presented in this fashion more completely than if I used this other method) and modify or adapt my courses in response. As for the students, I show them the compiled graph and where they lie relative to the data set, and if they are somewhat "below the curve" we can talk about study habits or alternative techniques for improve long-term retention for future use as opposed to emphasizing short-term recall for a particular exam.
The third approach that I have found valuable is service learning. I have always had an interest in service learning for philosophical reasons (I am Campus Compact trained: www.compact.org), but I find that my upper-level students in particular respond well to field-based projects where they know the work that they perform will be of interest and use to someone. As a result, I have set up two different service learning relationships with state parks/research reserves that have a research mission but limited staff to perform the work. We work with the managers of those sites to address questions of concern to them in exchange for open access to the field site and the expertise of their staff. Research projects, capstone course projects, and individual labs or classes are all brought under the umbrella of the service learning relationships, creating a nice practical slant to our courses that allows our students to have multiple interactions with people in fields that they someday wish to enter. This approach gives students the chance to work on issues of local importance at places that they probably have visited or discussed, often with people they have met formally or informally over the years. As a result, the students seem to put forth more effort, and are more likely to claim some ownership of the project than if their papers were just going to end up in some filing cabinet or waste basket. Also, when it comes time for the students to enter the workforce, potential employers are already familiar with them.
These three approaches are among my favorites of all the things I have
tried over the years. If they seem to fit your teaching style and personality,
by all means give them a try and see if they work as well for you.