Joy of Teaching

One of my favorite authors is Parker Palmer. I have four of his books and am currently reading the one he most recently published. His book, The Courage to Teach, should be read (and reread) by every teacher. It is a true gift to all who have been called to teaching.

The book opens with this paragraph:

"I am a teacher at heart, and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy. When my students and I discover uncharted territory to explore, when the pathway out of a thicket opens up before us, when our experience is illuminated by the lightning-life of the mind – then teaching is the finest work I know."

The question I would like to pose to you in this post is this: When have you experienced this kind of joy in your own teaching?

I have a number of these but I will share the most recent. It occurred this week at The Loop in Embry Hills Shopping Center. We were having a meeting of the Officers and Committee Chairs of the Cecil B. Day Campus Chapter of Habitat for Humanity. While waiting for our food and without a prompt from me to the students about how the just completed term had gone for them, a couple offered some comments.

One student told me that what we had done together was her "favorite part of the course." She told me that she saw a number of ways that what we had learned had applications to practice and to patient care. A second student told me that she understands and appreciates why we do the activities that we do in class. She said that they do, in fact, help her to learn. She said that she wanted me to know that even though some students complain about having to do things in class, she believes that the efforts are of great benefit for learning. She said that the class activities help her to see that I care about learning.

I want to hear your stories of the kinds of moments about which Parker Palmer speaks. For me, your sharing of these experiences also brings me joy. For me, hearing these stories helps me to move away from that question that I ask myself sometimes about finding new work and even finding something that I can actually do successfully. I look forward to your sharing.

Student Expectations and Grades

This editorial by Bill Maxwell from the February 20 St. Petersburg Times was sent to me by Phillip Owen. Mr. Maxwell says that in his teaching career, he “came to expect students to challenge lower-than-expected grades solely on the basis of having ‘worked hard’ and having satisfied the basic requirements.” Another article in the New York Times entitled “Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes” by Max Roosevelt reaches essentially the same conclusion.

We have probably all heard a student at some time come to us and say that this is the lowest grade that they have ever made. The implication to me is that it is somehow all my fault. These articles may help to explain some of these comments and beliefs that the exam was too difficult.

After reading the articles, I am not sure that I agree that many, or even most, of our students feel this sense of entitlement. If they do, then perhaps part of it is our fault for making learning competitive rather than collaborative. Maybe we cause this feeling by giving “bonus points” or extra credit work. Is it due to the long-held belief that grade inflation is rampant? Have we given students the view that a degree is simply a “product” that can be purchased and they view education as a consumer?

What have your experiences been? Are there many students who believe that it is basically about effort? How do you respond to the student who tells you that the test was too hard or was unfair?

Is this the "Entitled Generation." Based on my work with students in APhA-ASP, HealthSTAT and Habitat for Humanity, I don’t see this. I would like to hear your experiences.

Characteristics of a Good Course

Every faculty member should be able to answer the following question. What are the characteristics of a “good course?” I would like for each of you to list one characteristic. The list generated should be informative to us and may lead to useful discussion.

I will start with one characteristic that I believe should be part of a good course.

A good course makes use of a range of teaching approaches that together produces learning experiences and an environment that leads students to the achievement of the desired learning objectives. The teaching/learning strategies must be explained to students so that the purpose of each strategy is clear to them.

Facebook in Teaching and Learning

We recently created a Group on Facebook for the Cecil B. Day Campus Habitat for Humanity Chapter. Within one week, there were 118 members.

Facebook is generally considered to be the leading social networking site among college students. With Facebook, individuals can create profiles that include personal interests, affiliations, pictures, and basically anything else that they want to post. The profile links the user to other people who have posted similar information. For example, you can find and display all users who list the same favorite movie that you did. Since a social networking site provides a number of ways for users to interact and constantly creates connections among users, the appeal is obviously broad.

A technology like Facebook that can captivate so many students who can spend large amounts of time using it, I think, offers us an opportunity to incorporate it into teaching and learning. One of the first things that we need to do, I believe, is to try to understand the components of social networking that students find so compelling. Obviously in Facebook, there are a lot of distractions and not everything is relevant or pedagogically useful. Remember also, that we should not incorporate technology into teaching and learning efforts just because it is uber-cool. The technology needs to aid learning.

I have begun to think about ways that we may use Facebook and social networking to assist with learning and teaching. Facebook certainly emphasizes to students the importance of creating content. The student user is encouraged to formulate profiles that communicate and express who they are and that highlight their talents and experience. The reflective side of it may be the most important part.

There are many questions that come to mind about incorporating this technology into teaching and learning. For example, how is the information flow in social networking best managed. Many of us who are Facebook users find that it can become overwhelming very quickly. Much of the information seems like “noise.” In the F2F classroom, we and students generally know how to deal with that. But is it different in the online environment?

Here are a few other questions.

How do people now use Facebook in their professional lives? Do we need to help student pharmacists begin to learn how it will be able to help them to grow once they graduate?

How might social networks relate to personal learning and to formal learning?

Will the ease of surrounding oneself with only those who have similar interests potentially limit the exposure to new ideas and experiences for a student?

It seems to me that since Facebook (and other social networking) is used and accepted by students, then we need to find ways to develop innovative pedagogical uses and encourage students to become engaged participants in learning through their online connections.

I would like to hear your thoughts about the possibility of using social networking systems like Facebook in teaching situations. How would you respond to these first questions that I pose? What additional questions should we be thinking about? I look forward to a conversation about this.

It’s Culture, Not Morality

In a soon to be published book entitled My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, Susan D. Blum talks about how current students think and act about originality and ethics. She posits that two cultures exist today in the classroom, ours and theirs. Studies have shown that over 75% of students admit to having cheated and 68% say that they have cut and pasted material from the Internet without citing the source.

We all can probably think of many reasons that we could give for students using any means to get a good grade. From a post reporting on the book on the February 3 Inside Higher Ed Page, Blum suggest that the real problem of academic dishonesty comes from a lack of communication between the two cultures she describes. The Inside Higher Ed report states that she believes that most universities use a "shock and awe approach" to combating plagiarism and that it is not working. Blum believes that we should adapt a "hearts and minds strategy" to help us understand why students do what they do, why what we do does not work and why we should even care.

When the book is published, it sounds like something that we should read and could help to open a dialogue between us and our students. But until then, read the article on Inside Higher Ed, and let others know what you think. Is what we are doing unproductive? Is it appropriate? What role do we have in the promotion of academic integrity? Is this part of helping student pharmacists to become professionals? What other approaches, if any, should we take? I look forward to your thoughts.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences of Mercer University. This blog is designed for discussion of issues related to learning and teaching within the College. Your comments are encouraged!