I'll admit I'm fairly new to the classroom. Most of my MA grad work was research based. And then when I taught as a PhD candidate, I was protected by a year of simple TA work; I only taught on my own for one year.So these past two years in my first t-t spot have been a real bootcamp for me. Although I feel some support from colleagues, I've kept my problems to myself a bit, and maybe that's been wrong.
The truth is, I'm a researcher. I'm great in the lab, and that's what I'd really like to spend my time on. But, the job market edged me into a situation where my teaching is 50% of my tenure & promotion, and I struggle mightily, especially in a big 100 level class I teach every term. Not only are my evaluations bad, I simply stand there sometimes baffled at how to get the material across to uninterested undergrads.
I'm not even saying it's their fault. I think it's me. The work seems so simple, so dull. I can't get up for the battle myself. I even like the students. But I can't get my head around why they struggle with what seems like basic information.
Q: For anyone who thinks you've been where I am, how do you refocus your own energies to teach 100-level work in a technical or scientific field when what you really want to do is your own research? What do you have to do to find real purpose in teaching such basic information? Can someone who loves research be trained or taught to be a good teacher?
A: Post replies below.
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Books mentioned in the comments:
- Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (Josse Bass Higher and Adult Education)
- What the Best College Teachers Do
- McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers, 13th Edition
- The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman)
In all seriousness, Ellis, can whatever office you have on campus that teaches people how to teach (they have a variety of names which may include words such as "teaching and learning" or "teaching development" or something like that). They probably have classes, individual sessions, or faculty groups that discuss exactly the sorts of problems you are concerned with. If you are bored with the material, you can be sure that your students are, and that will just lead to problems with crowd control and cheating, none of which will reflect well on you. Plus, you are going to have to do this for the rest of your life, so you ought to learn to like it.
ReplyDeleteI think that you can learn to be an effective teacher, and if you are passionate about the subject itself, students will pick up on that. (My student comments often run to "Professor D is very excited about her subject and she gets us excited.")
ReplyDeleteIf you are at a research uni, you are probably not alone in your sentiments...although if it's 50% of your tenure eval, that sounds like it might not be the case.
I teach in the social sciences, and at the 100 level we are more social than science...but you may find Bean's "Engaging Ideas" to be useful to you. He tries to address a variety of disciplines, including the scientific/technical ones. It was a lifesaver for me in terms of helping me go from -wanting- to be effective to actually (I think) -being- effective.
I've also used my uni's teaching resource center extensively....does your institution have one? I literally went in and said "I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do here." They were great about providing concrete strategies.
Others will no doubt have greater wisdom, but wanted to put that out there...Atom Smasher (aka: the Boyfriend) is in a very similar situation and we've discussed this often.
Your school's teaching component is obviously very important. You need to hook up with a veteran in your department.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how many times I here younger faculty in a panic about the silverbacks, I find they are usually surprised how much help they can get my humbly asking for it.
Find a mentor, bloody hell!
ReplyDeleteEvery department has at least one person who has her/his head on straight. Take a skinny vanilla latte to that person and beg for help...no whimpering, but bended knee works.
Given the inordinately high percentage on your teaching, I'd suspect your college or university cares a GREAT deal that you're doing a good job in the classroom, especially a 100 level one.
ReplyDeleteSo, buck up and get thee in front of some other teachers.
You'll be seen as proactive if you ask for help. If you wait until your evaluations are bad enough to raise red flags, you'll just be a problem someone else has to solve.
You're not alone, but you need to act now.
A mentor or mentor group is good advice, consulting whatever charlatans pretend to be teaching help at your university may or may not be useful, depending on how bad you suck.
ReplyDeleteYou could also play to your strengths and research teaching. Your question sounds like that one my students ask, where they assume the ability to write well is some kind of innate gift, and wonder whether they can learn (or hope for the answer, nah, you can't learn, don't bother.)
Yes, you can learn to get better. One thing that will help is to figure out why you suck. And it's not because you can't figure out why they struggle. You know why they struggle - they are not as smart as you. Do some research on learning styles. Figure out how you learn, and then realize it's not how most of your students learn.
Research good and bad teaching - read posts here, and at ye olde RYS, and even, good god, the Chronicle.
It's totally possible to learn to be a better teacher, but it's going to be a slog for you. You know what you like learning, and this isn't it.
I know exactly how you feel, Ellis. Glad to know there is someone else out there in the same situation. If you find the answer, let me know!
ReplyDeleteI'm mostly gonna echo what most of the other folks here said: your university probably has a resource center for instructors, and the other profs can be a great source of ideas. Plus, both of those sources are practically begging to be used. In particular, teachers' resource centers often have to do a lot of outreach, and they'll be excited to get somebody coming in under her/his own steam.
ReplyDeleteYou might also check into your state's university system and see if there's a program for improving instructor performance. The state in which I live, for example, has an instructor-improvement program that pays a generous stipend.
When you were an undergrad, you became interested enough in the subject you are teaching to pursue it all the way through a PhD. What did those teachers do that made you interested or kept the interest you had brewing? What did you love about those classes? There are people in that classroom that aren't any different from who you are then, and they are who you should be reaching out to and trying to identify with.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began teaching I wanted to emulate the best things I'd seen, create the classroom atmosphere that I enjoyed being in, and make those people love the subject as much as I do. Is it 100 level crap? Well gee, yes, often. But that 100 level crap is what enables all the other things I really love to do.
I've also learned to not be afraid to try new things, different things, and things my colleagues wouldn't particularly do. In English, this usually involves bringing strange technological applications to your class, and without knowing more I'm not sure what it would mean for you. But the moment I stopped worrying about trying new things because they might hurt my evals was also the moment when trying new things began to HELP my evals.
Also check out your professional associations.
ReplyDeleteOf course the behavioral sciences are more inclined to want to study/investigate the process of teaching, but even the hardest of sciences must appreciate that someone has to teach the next generation of rocket scientists.
There probably is a division/committee/office in the association which focuses on the teaching of the discipline. They are usually good for ideas on activities, methodologies, approaches to make the discipline manageable for the noob (student and teacher!)
I gotta say that MLP's advice sounds fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThose internal people who teach you how to teach usually just provide schmooze-fests. In my experience, anyway. But there's nothing wrong with empty calories. It makes some people feel better. Just having a placebo makes some people more confident going into the classroom.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do, instead, is remember how I felt as a student sitting in those intro classes I wasn't majoring in. The ones I received the lowest grades in. Because that's how clueless your current students are--except worse.
If that doesn't work, then threaten the students. Remind them that you know where they live.
Last year, some of my colleagues and I would get together every so often to discuss our teaching. It was just an informal group that sprang from a desire to connect with other teachers and counter the isolation of the work. Anyway, we read parts of Ken Bain's book, and found it useful as a starting point for some of our discussions. I might quibble with some of his assertions, but I found the book mightily helpful in thinking about my methods and approach. Highly recommend for someone with your concerns.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/What-Best-College-Teachers-Do/dp/0674013255
Those pesky evaluations we all love to hate can in fact sometimes be a clue about where to start. I'm assuming here that you teach more than one course per term because everyone gets a really bad class now and then, and you just have to shake those off and take whatever you can from them. I have sometimes found that my student evals will give me a clue that I need to be doing something differently. For example, a lot of students complained about the research project's design, so I figured out a way to make them do it in increments to allow for feedback throughout the course. You might look at your student evals to see if any kind of pattern emerges as to what students see as problematic.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what your P & T process is, but ours includes teaching observations by both a peer and the chairperson, as well as having another peer review our syllabi and course materials and evaluate them. Even if your college does not do this, it's not a bad idea to start doing it for yourself, at least with the peers. That way you get a fresh set of eyes looking at your materials and presentation. It helped me a great deal with my focus in a couple of classes.
Finally, if you can afford it, I'd advise attending a conference with a focus on teaching. You can often get a ton of ideas from those sessions. Plus most of them nowadays will provide you with online access to materials from every session, and you get to meet people with an interest in teaching who might provide you with some idea or inspiration to spark your interest.
I won't go so far as to say that teaching needs to be entertaining but a good professor is a performer. You grab your audience's attention, present the lesson and explain why it is important. That's a performance. Tell jokes, cite interesting historical facts, do demonstrations, show relevant (or not) YouTube videos, whatever.
ReplyDeleteWill they learn from any of your performance tricks? For most, not likely but they will enjoy the process of not learning, which will be reflected on your higher evaluations. Your performance might get a few more butts in the seats which can't help but increase their knowledge but don't expect much.
McKeachies Teaching Tips & Strategies is good book,
ReplyDeleteI read Peter Filene's "Joy of Teaching" last year and it's a great elixir to the teaching soul. It has some specific info about those dreaded 100 intro classes that could help you!
ReplyDeleteEllis, does your campus have a faculty mentor program? Not sure what your discipline is, but the American Political Science Program has a faculty mentor program as well. I ask this because it may be useful for you to develop some closer relationships with a few students who could provide you feedback. Obviously, you would be their mentor, but I find they provide me with useful feedback. Mentoring relationships can be a two-way street... unless you are paired with snowflakes. The best thing about a mentoring is that you develop a close, professional relationship with a student in which you can watch (and help) them succeed - seeing their growth directly may help you persevere in the classroom. Again, the joy of teaching is watching students grow, so maybe you need to find a few who will inspire you! If you're stuck on the fact that you're teaching snowflakey undergrads, well there are in fact undergrads who are great students (and they're often the smart ones who join mentoring programs).
ReplyDeleteWhat I have liked about teaching is revisiting the _basics_ of my field. Actually explaining them in a way that was never explained to me is part of the fun. In the humanities and social sciences, that means exploring how we know what we know, what constitutes evidence, looking for the _general_ stuff about human experience that is part of every _specific_ text, event or person we explore. Anything that goes beyond memorizing names and dates is already going way beyond what many students bring to the classroom.
ReplyDeleteIn the more technical fields or the natural sciences, your field is about getting to the foundation of how the world really works. What could be sexier? Just guessing, but here are some things that I think would have turned me on more when I was 20 and getting bored with natural science, those fields which I have since tried to re-capture through popular science reading:
- Do some phenomenology. Periodic tables and atom diagrams are one thing. But what is an atom really? What does it "look" like? What is really going on?
- Use absurd but fun examples: Calculate how far a shooter would have to stand back from his target to have a .50 caliber bullet fired at velocity v hit but not injure and simply bounce off his target's forehead. How many megatons of nuclear blast would it take to turn Walden pond into steam, assuming a completely efficient use of the energy? You can use specific references to stuff you know they are getting in some of their other classes.
- Biology is loaded with relevance, of course. There, you can drop half-veiled references to cultural memes like ID and use the first protest as a teaching moment.
I agree with Beaker Ben. I had a similarly difficult start in teaching as you. However, within a term I was able to turn it around. The key factor was the enthusiasm I was able to project to the class.
ReplyDeleteSubsequently, there have been terms where I have (due to family crises etc) actually taught very poorly. However, my evals stayed high and I attribute this to continuing to project enthusiasm even when the content of the teaching sucked.
So, my suggestion would be to put effort into showing enthusiasm and excitement in your teaching. God knows I'm bored to tears by some of my courses, but I put the face on. And it works. Consistently.
Good luck.
I can't thank you all enough. What a great network of colleagues.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you do, Ellis, don't flunk anyone. That's the one sure way to red flag yourself for the superiors...
ReplyDeleteBut the advice here otherwise is great. What did you love about the field at first? That's what you have to "sell" to the groundlings.
@Kimmie: Not flunking anyone in the intro class would certainly catch my department chairman's attention. Was that humor?
ReplyDeleteI understand that some teaching resource centers may suck. Mine saved my ass, particularly because "mentorship" was nonexistent in my department. In a moment of massive irony, I now mentor graduate TAs.
ReplyDeleteMassive irony is a growth industry in academia....
ReplyDeleteHippy Branflake Idea: Do nia. Four or five classes of it. Learn to be in your body as you lecture. It makes you more compelling. For real. (Student comment: It seems like you could...I don't know...just suddenly run up the wall or something.)
ReplyDeleteI am shocked that, after 26 comments, not one person suggested Ellis quit so someone else can have the job (which is how the mailbag seemed to swing over at RYS about 4 years ago).
ReplyDeleteI was always a fan of the method My Little Proffie suggested above: Emulate your own great instructors. Sadly, it eventually stopped working because the more recent cohorts of students are not as skilled as we were back in the day. The post-hippy-now-yuppy methods are verboten and foreign to most of today's snowflakes (at least where I have taught).
@Bubba
ReplyDeleteFlunking anyone at my institution shows the Dean that you aren't really working hard enough to help the poor darlings...
@Kimmie: You must work at Sarah Lawrence?
ReplyDelete...or a secondary school in my town?
ReplyDeleteWell, there are two ways to approach a 100/1000-level course.
ReplyDeleteIs this course a foundations course that is basic, but serves as a gateway/prereq course for future work?
Is this course a service course?
In both cases, you need to get over the research - in an introductory foundation course, think basic tools / weed out. Assemble fundamental concepts and approaches. Identify the basic ways in which thinking is done in your discipline, and the basic required capabilities. In a basic service course, think in terms of a guided tour - you're an ambassador or technical guide, or maybe a docent. Bundle the concepts and give a basic overview. At one level, a service course is like a sampler - a set of important examples of work in your discipline, rendered in a fashion that is comprehensible to people not in your discipline - not necessarily stupid, but definately not trained in your area.
It is important to explicitly plan your course in view of your students capabilities, and in the context of the course and its pre-requisites.
Streamline your course as much as possible, and plan the course as large components, and within components as discrete clusters of ideas, concepts, exercises.
Plan the flow of the course in terms of a few ongoing themes if the subject matter permits, and also in terms of a coherent succession of clusters. Be aware of independent blocks of content versus blocks that depend on a building up of ideas or skills. Reinforce repeatedly necessary ideas or skills that need to be reused or otherwise addressed repeatedly.
Use a variety of media and delivery types: hypermdeia, lecture, text, workbooks, whatever.
Use a variety of teaching approaches: lecture, group work (pleeeeeeeeeease ungraded), coaching, mentoring.
And oncve you've decided on your approach, be as transparent as possible with your students - it helps them to understand your approaches, policies and standards.
Remove undo emotional or intellectual attachment to your students perceptions of the course, and do not take the students personally. It isn't necessary to make them love you or your course content. Like isn't even needed. They'll appreciate, albeit grudgingly, a transparently demandin but fairly run course. The more carefully and transparently you run your course, the better you'll do, and the better you'll be protected when challenged.
...demanding but fairly run course...
ReplyDelete