|
Here is a brief contribution to the catalog of stories from the first day of teaching. Within something like five minutes as a new teacher, during
my first class as a mid-semester replacement writing instructor, a student interrupted, “You are wasting
our time. We are supposed to be working on [some assignment I cannot recall].” My response is lost to memory, but recollection of the feeling of speechless worry stuck. Of course, that sort of unsettling exchange has not happened again in my courses, and it is a story that comes to mind only rarely, but
During the first days of the new semester, be transparent, make the case for the course, and consider what students bring.
I am perversely
grateful for the experience. The antagonist
was most likely wrong—his approach to criticism was ineffective, anyway—but as a representative
of students who do not know the purposes of a class or who believe those purposes are not valuable,
he was at least memorable. Challenged by similar complaints (offered more diplomatically, we hope), thoughtful faculty and teaching
assistants should have a fairly straightforward response, that the work at hand has purpose and even if its intended outcomes aren’t absolutely
clear to students, they guide what we do in our courses. While the students who are able to discern those aims and those who make sophisticated
connections between the course and others may find their own value in good courses, all students
deserve clear explanation of how assignments, material, and teaching strategies connect in support
of learning.
This seems straightforward enough—have a reason for the ways you
teach—but the temptation to teach with familiar
|
|
strategies because they are what we know can be compelling. In
support of learning that lasts and can be integrated with prior and
future academic work, we must teach with clear purpose. We bolster
that support by attempting to make the thinking behind pedagogical
decisions known to students. These aims and strategies may be global (for instance,
the ways the scope of a course’s content is determined) and very local (the reasons
for using a simulation exercise as an introduction to your lecture or for asking students to respond to their peers’ drafts of a paper).
At the beginning of the semester, opportunities for communicating expectations, learning about student
expectations, outlining purposes,
and generally distinguishing a course within the context of other courses are plentiful.• Treat the syllabus as an introduction
to and guide for the course, more than a chronological
list of topics and catalog of policies.
• Take time to explain course goals.
• Solicit student expectations of the course and perceptions of the discipline.
• Articulate connections between assignments and, as the semester
progresses, have students do the same.
• Invite questions about the course.
• If appropriate, introduce possible
research opportunities for strong students.
• Do not diminish procedural details (office
hours, communication, submission protocols) but emphasize a
conceptual introduction to the
|
|
course.
• In smaller classes, invite students
to develop their own guidelines for how the group will interact.
•
Help students evaluate the knowledge they bring to your class, offer
a preview, and collect some baseline data on prior knowledge with
ungraded diagnostic assessments. The purpose is not to intimidate
students but to gather some sense of their starting point.
Note that these tips should have value for
students and for the in structor,
who will leave the first day
with a much better sense of what lies ahead and what adjustments
will help than those who use the
first day to distribute a syllabus
and
begin a lecture. The latter model has
significant advantages. It frames the
course, initiates the distribution of
information in a specific context,
and wastes no time. It fails to acknowledge, however, the variety of
minds, experiences, and expectations of students, and it signals
that everything students need to know about a course is communicated
sufficiently in the syllabus.
During the first days of the new
semester, be transparent, make the case for the course, and consider
what students bring.
|
