Professor=Teacher=Facilitator
As Ellen Langer beautifully states: “The simple process of mindful learning, of actively drawing distinctions and noticing new things-seeing the familiar in the novel and the novel in the familiar-is a way to ensure that our minds are active, that we are involved, and that we are situated in the present.”
I definitely think that working my way from undergraduate to graduate school, learning has been a much more pleasant and active experience for me. Being in engineering, I think we have all experienced those professors which just write a bunch of equations on the board and finish the class with some examples which they might provide the answer to right away or during the next session! The main reason that I attended classes like this was to take notes so that I can go home and study from notes after class! This approach is the “top down” approach which relies on discursive lecturing to instruct students. I should say that I find this method beneficial for students who just want to familiarize themselves with the topics which are introduced in a course and maybe take the time themselves to dive deeper in the topics that they find beneficial to their life/work/research. This is the same concept as auditing a course. I definitely think that if we are taking courses for credit we should be very hands on with that course and not just familiarized with some concepts and methods of that topic. This ties well with the “bottom-up” approach which relies on direct experience and repeated practice of the new activity in a systematic way. Some of best courses that I have had in my life shared two common guidelines which I find very useful:
1) The professors always mentioned not to worry about the grade. This semester I noticed that all professors were required to put a grading scale on their syllabus! I do not know if this is very useful! Since it puts extra stress on the students and also all the professors ended up mentioning that they were required to include this grading scale on their syllabus and that they will curve the class to help students focus on learning and not theirgrade. So why include the grading scale on the syllabus?
2) They always tied the theory with some great life examples. As as example I took a decision theory course last semester and as part of the course requirement we had to learn how to play poker and participate in a poker playing session in class! I mean how much more hands on can we get with decision making?! Everyone had to consider their (and other player’s) probability of winning, and then figure out how much it is worth for them to bet according to their chances of winning in a limited amount of time! Not to mention that at some point emotions will get involved since you want to win so badly, or you have already bet so much that you have “nothing to loose”, or are pressurized by another player! You should also consider that other players might be bluffing! This tied very well with most of the topics that were introduced in the course and helped me adapt the skills that I learned to a real life example which could also be further adapted to trading stocks, important life decisions (i.e. at a personal or job level), etc.
I also think that redesigning your syllabus (which I wrote a blog post about last semester) is a fun and creative way for enhancing the learning process and making the class more active and interactive. Why not look back at our best learning experiences and try to adapt those methods to what we are teaching? Another example in my field (civil engineering) could include some hands on work, preferably in the lab with designing structures and testing them under various types of loads. Yes, I know how to design structures for bridges, houses, etc on a piece of paper. However this is just like another example introduced by Ellen Langer which was someone teaching you methodologically how to perform CPR on infants and adults. Now imagine that you are walking by a pool and you come across a 7 year old who needs CPR. What do you do? How do you adapt your CPR knowledge to this 7 year old?
As teachers, we should introduce concepts and theories, and design activities and group projects which allow the learners to engage in the content by exploring, debating, creating, practicing, and imitating rather than just receiving! We need to facilitate the learning process so that learners are prepared to adjust and adopt what they have learned to real life scenarios rather then teaching them to be mindlessly sequential. In this way learning will be fun and interactive and students will not think about what would be on the test but will think about the applications of the content that they are leaning.
Let’s not repeat history! Don’t be boring teachers! Be fun, be creative, be dynamic, be inclusive . . . !
February 1, 2016 @ 2:16 am
I agree with you that taking a course for a grade is something really stressful for most for most of us, but I’ve tried several times to attend courses I am interested in as audit and believe it or not I’ve never completed a course out of them! Just I went to the first 2-3 lectures and then I realized that the time for these lectures could be better saved for another important task and I decided to stop attending the course! For me, In order to get the most out of a course and really learn the concepts in it I have to take it for credit so that I am forced to dedicate time in my schedule for it. Accordingly, I believe that grading is an important factor in assessing how much did you get out from a course.
February 2, 2016 @ 8:43 pm
Thanks for your comment! I guess in my mind that is what audit really means… It’s taking a course just to familiarize yourself with the topics and I guess if you cannot relate to the content of the course and you find a better way to allocate your time you will quit going to the class. However for the grading, I agree that it is important to use grades for assessing students. My argument is that it is not important to include it on the syllabus since the grading scale will be changed based on the performance of the class.
February 1, 2016 @ 3:01 pm
Great post! I think a lot of us agree that we should help students get past the tunnel-vision on grades and, instead, shift focus to learning and getting excited about the material. However, the other side of the coin is that grade point averages help determine whether students get scholarships, jobs, or graduate school acceptances. So, I guess I think it is kind of unrealistic, and maybe unfair, to totally downplay the grading aspect of a class (although, as you mentioned, the heavy emphasis on grades that is more common in higher education today is counterproductive and definitely in need of change!). I personally like having a grading scale or rubric on a syllabus because it makes the grading more transparent and fair, although I may be in the minority. For example, I had a T.A. last semester, and apparently red pens made him feel powerful, because he loved to take off points for very strange, nitpicky things that the entire class was confused about. Some sort of grading rubric or list of expectations would have greatly decreased resentment towards him. I also think it may invite disagreements with students over grades if a grading scale/rubric is not on the syllabus…”but at my old school a 91 was an A not an A-!”…”I didn’t know that homework assignments made up so much of the course grade! Usually exams mainly determine the grade”…etc. It is certainly a challenge to strike a balance between transparency and making sure students are concerned with learning rather than “is this going to be on the test?”.
February 2, 2016 @ 8:43 pm
Great points Carrie! I definitely agree with you on being transparent about the course requirements. For example if the TA is looking for some specific points in the homework that should definitely be mentioned upfront. Also, the points dedicated to quizzes, homework, exams, etc. should be included on the syllabus (in a fun and creative way that would take the focus away from the grade itself). My main point is to assure that students understand what is expected of them without emphasizing so much on the grading scale/rubric or how the grade is distributed between different parts of the course. As an example if quizzes are more important than the assignments, we could include a pyramid on the syllabus and show our class expectations in the order of importance. In this way the students know what to focus on more for maintaining a good GPA, and maybe worry less about the fact that quizzes/homeworks make 60% of their grade.
February 2, 2016 @ 8:13 pm
I can tell we’re going to have a vigorous discussion of grading next week! I’ll just add here that I share your conception of the teacher as a mindful learning facilitator. Just shifting the way we see ourselves — thinking about how we can facilitate and support inquiry, reflection, problem solving, questioning, etc. can make a huge difference in the way students frame their learning. A little mindfulness can go a long way!
February 2, 2016 @ 8:42 pm
Thanks Amy! I definitely agree with you on supporting inquiry, etc. I think that small things like redesigning the syllabus to be more reflective of our course requirements while encouraging reflections, and questions will definitely go a long way.
February 3, 2016 @ 8:12 pm
Great post! I loved your statement, “We need to facilitate the learning process so that learners are prepared to adjust and adopt what they have learned to real life scenarios rather then teaching them to be mindlessly sequential.” You’re exactly right. The whole point of education is so often overlooked. If we can’t apply our education, how can we contribute to society? Moreover, if students truly understood the applicability of their education, would we still have this disconnect between the classroom and the real world?
February 3, 2016 @ 9:21 pm
Absolutely! This is why employees are not interested in hiring college graduates with no work experience. If students understand the applicability of their education, the will be much better prepared for the job market.
February 3, 2016 @ 8:58 pm
Great post! I love that you emphasized that teachers should allow students to lead. This is such a valuable skill, and one that which traditional learning and content delivery does not facilitate! I think leadership would also encourage ownership, both of the course content and answering the question of “why is this relevant to me?”
February 3, 2016 @ 10:13 pm
Thanks Cassie! Absolutely! I think leadership plays a very important role in this. I actually took a leadership workshop back in University of Waterloo in Canada, and as part of the class requirement we were assigned in-class topics in which we had to switch roles from group leader to facilitator, etc. As a Masters student, I thought this should be a very easy process, however once I was assigned to be the leader of the group, I found it very hard to apply my theoretical knowledge to this real life scenario. For example as a leader you need to find the balance point of pushing your opinion and accepting another ideaa than might be better than yours. This required both theoretical knowledge and leadership capabilities, in addition to understanding how your theoretical knowledge is relevant to you and the other people around you.