Social Media Examiner: 5 Steps to Starting Your Own Podcasting Show
Thursday, January 27, 2011
AP Exclusive: Teach For America Gets $100M Endowment
By DORIE TURNER, Associated Press
January 27, 2011
ATLANTA – Teach For America, the education organization that has placed recent college graduates in low-income public schools, is getting $100 million to launch its first-ever endowment in hopes of making the grass-roots organization a permanent fixture in education.
The program — which is now in communities from Atlanta to rural New Mexico to Los Angeles — announced Thursday that four philanthropists are joining to create a stable, long-term source of money. It's welcome news for an organization that had more than 46,000 applications for just 4,400 teaching slots this academic year.
"A few years ago we embraced the priority of making Teach For America an enduring American institution that can thrive as long as the problem we're working to address persists," said founder Wendy Kopp, who dreamed up Teach For America for her undergraduate thesis and launched it in 1990. "I think it's only appropriate in our country — which aspires to be a place of equal opportunity — that we have an institution which is about our future leaders making good on that promise."
It's also likely to be unwelcome news for teachers' unions and other opponents, who say Teach For America puts inexperienced 20-somethings with just five weeks of training in classrooms and most of them move on after their two years of service. Some have criticized it as an organization that lets top graduates experiment in public education for a couple of years before moving on to something else.
Teach for America says one-third of its alumni keep teaching after two years, and two out of three remain in the field, some in as public-policy analysts or school administrators. It points to studies that show its teachers are at least as effective as those who enter the teaching profession in more traditional ways.
The idea of an endowment started with philanthropist Eli Broad, who pledged $25 million from his Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and encouraged others to commit to the project. Three more foundations stepped up with matching funds: the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Robertson Foundation and philanthropists Steve and Sue Mandel.
The endowment will only produce about 2 percent of Teach For America's $200 million budget at first, but Kopp said that will grow over time. The organization gets its budget from nonprofits, corporations and federal grants, but those aren't always dependable.
Kopp said she hopes that steady stream of revenue means the organization can double the number of active corps members serving two-year terms to 15,000 and increase the communities they reach from 39 to 60.
Broad, whose foundation gives out the nation's top prize in public education each year, has donated $41 million total to Teach For America since its inception. He said he wanted to form an endowment to ensure the program persists.
"Instead of it being viewed as a movement, we have to make it look like an institution," Broad said in a telephone interview. "One of the ways you do that is an endowment like a college or university has."
Not only is Teach for America celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, but Kopp's second book, "A Chance to Make History," debuted this week. The book outlines the lessons Kopp has learned as she's watched her organization's teachers try to change educational outcomes for the nation's poorest children.
"When I started on this endeavor 20 years ago, truly the prevailing notion at the time was that kids' socio-economic circumstances would determine their educational outcome," Kopp said. "Today we're surrounded by hundreds of examples of whole classrooms and schools that are taking kids from rural and urban areas and putting them on a different trajectory."
Teach For America: http://www.teachforamerica.org/
January 27, 2011
ATLANTA – Teach For America, the education organization that has placed recent college graduates in low-income public schools, is getting $100 million to launch its first-ever endowment in hopes of making the grass-roots organization a permanent fixture in education.
The program — which is now in communities from Atlanta to rural New Mexico to Los Angeles — announced Thursday that four philanthropists are joining to create a stable, long-term source of money. It's welcome news for an organization that had more than 46,000 applications for just 4,400 teaching slots this academic year.
"A few years ago we embraced the priority of making Teach For America an enduring American institution that can thrive as long as the problem we're working to address persists," said founder Wendy Kopp, who dreamed up Teach For America for her undergraduate thesis and launched it in 1990. "I think it's only appropriate in our country — which aspires to be a place of equal opportunity — that we have an institution which is about our future leaders making good on that promise."
It's also likely to be unwelcome news for teachers' unions and other opponents, who say Teach For America puts inexperienced 20-somethings with just five weeks of training in classrooms and most of them move on after their two years of service. Some have criticized it as an organization that lets top graduates experiment in public education for a couple of years before moving on to something else.
Teach for America says one-third of its alumni keep teaching after two years, and two out of three remain in the field, some in as public-policy analysts or school administrators. It points to studies that show its teachers are at least as effective as those who enter the teaching profession in more traditional ways.
The idea of an endowment started with philanthropist Eli Broad, who pledged $25 million from his Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and encouraged others to commit to the project. Three more foundations stepped up with matching funds: the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Robertson Foundation and philanthropists Steve and Sue Mandel.
The endowment will only produce about 2 percent of Teach For America's $200 million budget at first, but Kopp said that will grow over time. The organization gets its budget from nonprofits, corporations and federal grants, but those aren't always dependable.
Kopp said she hopes that steady stream of revenue means the organization can double the number of active corps members serving two-year terms to 15,000 and increase the communities they reach from 39 to 60.
Broad, whose foundation gives out the nation's top prize in public education each year, has donated $41 million total to Teach For America since its inception. He said he wanted to form an endowment to ensure the program persists.
"Instead of it being viewed as a movement, we have to make it look like an institution," Broad said in a telephone interview. "One of the ways you do that is an endowment like a college or university has."
Not only is Teach for America celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, but Kopp's second book, "A Chance to Make History," debuted this week. The book outlines the lessons Kopp has learned as she's watched her organization's teachers try to change educational outcomes for the nation's poorest children.
"When I started on this endeavor 20 years ago, truly the prevailing notion at the time was that kids' socio-economic circumstances would determine their educational outcome," Kopp said. "Today we're surrounded by hundreds of examples of whole classrooms and schools that are taking kids from rural and urban areas and putting them on a different trajectory."
Teach For America: http://www.teachforamerica.org/
The Teaching Professor: 9 Ways to Use Class Discussion to Promote Transformation
Featured Higher Education Presenter: Roben Torosyan, Ph.D.
Date: Thursday, 04/07/11
Time: 12:00-1:00 PM CDT
Cost: $249 ($274 after 03/31/11)
Colleges and universities face new challenges today. Along with their commitment to student education and success, higher education institutions must also help train students to think critically, communicate effectively and deal with differences productively.
These skills are sought after by employers, yet in short supply in society.
Learn how to teach students to think critically and communicate civilly with 9 Ways to Use Class Discussion to Promote Transformation, a 60-minute video online seminar presented by Dr. Roben Torosyan.
Learn Proven Practices to Overcome Resistance
Students can’t overcome bad habits they don’t know they have. Dr. Torosyan’s approach shows you how to establish a climate of trust in which students can learn to recognize blind spots, gaps and contradictions in the way they think. You’ll also learn how to:
•Encourage students to see past conflict and strive to understand opposing viewpoints
•Help students build on each other’s contributions
•Show students how to be both team leaders and team players
•Facilitate a transformation in thinking.
Making Classroom Discussion the Key to Active Learning
Adopting a relaxed yet rigorously prepared approach for this online seminar, Dr. Torosyan will share the following strategies on how to:
•Have students set and follow ground rules for classroom discussion
•Use short, ungraded writing assignments to deepen thinking and discussion
•Slow the flow of classroom discussion, and probe deeper
•Hear from (nearly) everyone
•Make tangents a gift
•Keep discussion on track or re-frame it
•Use comments to make the group responsible for its own dynamics
•Summarize what was learned
•Infuse variety into classroom discussions.
Who Should Attend
This seminar will help everyone from new instructors to seasoned veterans enhance classroom discussion. People in the following positions will particularly benefit from this seminar:
•Graduate student instructors
•Teaching assistants
•Adjunct and distance education faculty
•College and university professors
•Faculty developers and trainers
•Academic affairs administrators who want to make meetings more effective
•Student affairs leaders and staff.
About the Presenter
Dr. Roben Torosyan is a frequent speaker on faculty development for national organizations and institutions, including the Faculty Learning Community Facilitators’ Conference, The Teaching Professor, the POD Network, Harvard, Columbia and NYU. As associate director of the Center for Academic Excellence and assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at Fairfield University, he has extensive experience in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
The Extras You Get
With polling questions, a video clip and extensive opportunities for questions and answers, there are lots of ways to get actively involved during this seminar. You’ll also leave the seminar with materials you can use right away to take your classroom discussions to the next level, including:
•An article of Torosyan’s on improving classroom discussion
•Dos and don’ts
•Sample documents, including an example of an email sent to students who over or under participate
•Questions for further discussion
•The Discussion Guide for Facilitators, designed to help you and your campus community make the most of this seminar.
Invite Your Colleagues
Since Magna’s video online seminar fees are assessed on a per site basis–not per person–it makes economic sense to expand your guest list across campus–all for one low fee of $249.
Date: Thursday, 04/07/11
Time: 12:00-1:00 PM CDT
Cost: $249 ($274 after 03/31/11)
Colleges and universities face new challenges today. Along with their commitment to student education and success, higher education institutions must also help train students to think critically, communicate effectively and deal with differences productively.
These skills are sought after by employers, yet in short supply in society.
Learn how to teach students to think critically and communicate civilly with 9 Ways to Use Class Discussion to Promote Transformation, a 60-minute video online seminar presented by Dr. Roben Torosyan.
Learn Proven Practices to Overcome Resistance
Students can’t overcome bad habits they don’t know they have. Dr. Torosyan’s approach shows you how to establish a climate of trust in which students can learn to recognize blind spots, gaps and contradictions in the way they think. You’ll also learn how to:
•Encourage students to see past conflict and strive to understand opposing viewpoints
•Help students build on each other’s contributions
•Show students how to be both team leaders and team players
•Facilitate a transformation in thinking.
Making Classroom Discussion the Key to Active Learning
Adopting a relaxed yet rigorously prepared approach for this online seminar, Dr. Torosyan will share the following strategies on how to:
•Have students set and follow ground rules for classroom discussion
•Use short, ungraded writing assignments to deepen thinking and discussion
•Slow the flow of classroom discussion, and probe deeper
•Hear from (nearly) everyone
•Make tangents a gift
•Keep discussion on track or re-frame it
•Use comments to make the group responsible for its own dynamics
•Summarize what was learned
•Infuse variety into classroom discussions.
Who Should Attend
This seminar will help everyone from new instructors to seasoned veterans enhance classroom discussion. People in the following positions will particularly benefit from this seminar:
•Graduate student instructors
•Teaching assistants
•Adjunct and distance education faculty
•College and university professors
•Faculty developers and trainers
•Academic affairs administrators who want to make meetings more effective
•Student affairs leaders and staff.
About the Presenter
Dr. Roben Torosyan is a frequent speaker on faculty development for national organizations and institutions, including the Faculty Learning Community Facilitators’ Conference, The Teaching Professor, the POD Network, Harvard, Columbia and NYU. As associate director of the Center for Academic Excellence and assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at Fairfield University, he has extensive experience in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
The Extras You Get
With polling questions, a video clip and extensive opportunities for questions and answers, there are lots of ways to get actively involved during this seminar. You’ll also leave the seminar with materials you can use right away to take your classroom discussions to the next level, including:
•An article of Torosyan’s on improving classroom discussion
•Dos and don’ts
•Sample documents, including an example of an email sent to students who over or under participate
•Questions for further discussion
•The Discussion Guide for Facilitators, designed to help you and your campus community make the most of this seminar.
Invite Your Colleagues
Since Magna’s video online seminar fees are assessed on a per site basis–not per person–it makes economic sense to expand your guest list across campus–all for one low fee of $249.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE Internship Program for Postsecondary Students Spring 2011
The U. S. Department of Commerce (DOC)-Internship for Postsecondary Students Program has one remaining internship available for Spring 2011 Session. You must apply by January 28, 2011 to be considered. Preferred applicants should be graduate students studying or with a background in wireless technologies or working toward a degree in EE with an emphasis on RF communications. Junior or senior undergraduates will be considered. The internship will be in the Washington, D.C., and will require either part time (20-24 hours per week) or full time (40 hours per week). The internship will be for up to 15 weeks ending no later than 31 May 2011.
Weekly stipends are $600.00 for graduate interns and $500.00 for undergraduates. Part time stipends are prorated based on the number of hours involved per week. In addition, both undergraduate and graduate interns receive a $150 weekly housing allowance, plus limited travel reimbursement and accidental medical expense coverage.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
• U.S. Citizenship
• Enrolled graduate or undergraduate students majoring in wireless technologies or working toward a degree in EE with an emphasis on RF communications.
• Submit a completed application form plus all supporting documents by January 28, 2011
APPLICATION FORMS, SUBMISSION INFORMATION AND DEADLINE
Application form (PDF, doc and docx) and more information can be found at this web site: http://see.orau.org/ProgramDescription.aspx?Program=10038
Your completed application form, unofficial transcript from each college or university attended, resume, and two letters of reference must be faxed to Alicia Wells at (865) 241-5220. NOTE: If selected, you will be required to submit official transcripts to be appointed.
*This program is managed by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) for the Department of Commerce through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). ORISE is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) under DOE contract number DE-AC05-06OR23100.
For Information please contact: Alicia Wells at 865-576-34096 or alicia.wells@orau.org
Weekly stipends are $600.00 for graduate interns and $500.00 for undergraduates. Part time stipends are prorated based on the number of hours involved per week. In addition, both undergraduate and graduate interns receive a $150 weekly housing allowance, plus limited travel reimbursement and accidental medical expense coverage.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
• U.S. Citizenship
• Enrolled graduate or undergraduate students majoring in wireless technologies or working toward a degree in EE with an emphasis on RF communications.
• Submit a completed application form plus all supporting documents by January 28, 2011
APPLICATION FORMS, SUBMISSION INFORMATION AND DEADLINE
Application form (PDF, doc and docx) and more information can be found at this web site: http://see.orau.org/ProgramDescription.aspx?Program=10038
Your completed application form, unofficial transcript from each college or university attended, resume, and two letters of reference must be faxed to Alicia Wells at (865) 241-5220. NOTE: If selected, you will be required to submit official transcripts to be appointed.
*This program is managed by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) for the Department of Commerce through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). ORISE is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) under DOE contract number DE-AC05-06OR23100.
For Information please contact: Alicia Wells at 865-576-34096 or alicia.wells@orau.org
NSF/STEM Teaching and Learning Portfolio by Christine Vatovec
The Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning is a project of the Center of the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL—Grant No. 0227592). CIRTL is a National Science Foundation sponsored initiative committed to developing and supporting a learning community of STEM faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and staff who are dedicated to implementing and advancing effective teaching practices for diverse student audiences. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
For more information, please call us at 608-261-1180 or visit http://www.delta.wisc.edu.
For more information, please call us at 608-261-1180 or visit http://www.delta.wisc.edu.
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning: Mistaken Beliefs About Learning to Teach
Three beliefs about learning to teach hinder the early efforts of new teachers. The barriers they create continue to affect the development of midcareer and senior faculty as well.
Mistaken Belief 1: Teaching Is a Gift
Many new teachers start out assuming that teaching is a gift?an idea introduced in principle 2 of Chapter One. Teaching does involve natural ability?some teachers are gifted with more than others. But teaching also depends on a skill set that can be learned and then molded into a unique teaching style. If new faculty equate teaching effectiveness with natural ability and things don?t go all that well in the classroom, they are left with the unhappy conclusion that they don?t have the gift. This cannot help but change feelings about teaching?especially for academics who have already excelled with complex academic content and are unused to being anything but exceptional.
Unfortunately, the equation of teaching excellence with natural abilities is reinforced by the way even some excellent teachers talk about their own teaching. They have not thought deeply about what they do and why it works. I remember a conversation I had with one of the most skilled discussion facilitators I have ever observed. ?How do I get so many students discussing? Gosh, I just ask them questions.? ?How do I keep track of all their comments? I do that? Gosh, I haven?t really thought about it before. I guess, I just listen.? ?The way I diagram discussions on the board is unique? How did I come up with that? Gosh, I guess I started doing that because I needed to keep track of where we?d been and where it looks like we?re headed. I?m a pretty visual learner.? It was as if everything that this teacher did was simple and derived by happenstance. He put on his teaching much like he dressed in the morning, by rote and habit.
Mistaken Belief 2: Mastering the Techniques of Teaching Will Be Easy
The idea of effortless teaching or just doing what comes naturally leads directly to a related mistake. Gifted teachers, those with lots of natural ability, learn from experience automatically, almost inevitably. They do what needs to be done easily, flawlessly?two tries and they?ve got it down pat. They can?t even say how they learned it.
Giving new teachers simple answers to complex problems reinforces this idea that teaching techniques are easily mastered. The advice makes it sound so easy. You have trouble with students not doing the reading? Give them a quiz. You have the same students answering every question? Call on those who don?t volunteer. You don?t have class time to waste on announcements? Post them online. How difficult can teaching be with solutions this straightforward?
Now what happens in the classroom regularly challenges the idea that teaching is easy. New teachers discover the answers don?t always take care of the problem, or in taking care of one problem, they create others. New faculty learn the hard way that acquiring techniques and using them to promote learning are not the same thing. When beliefs and experiences are at odds, new teachers start to doubt themselves and wonder about their aptitude for the profession. ?If this is so easy, why can?t I make it work??
First experiences in the classroom can be unnerving. I remember telling myself at the end of my first year teaching that if the second year wasn?t any better, I was definitely going to change careers.
Some new teachers avoid the uncomfortable question of competence by looking for other reasons that might explain less than impressive performance in the classroom. They start to play the blame game; some turn pro, making a career of blaming everything that happens in the classroom on someone or something else. Students are an easy target. They don?t listen. They show no respect. They won?t study. They aren?t well prepared. They won?t ask questions. They don?t come for help. They aren?t interested in learning. Today?s college students (especially the 18?23 year-olds) are definitely not easy to teach. But as frustrating (some days, exasperating) and disappointing as they may be, students don?t deserve to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the classroom. Sometimes the blame does belong on their shoulders?but sometimes it deserves to be shouldered by their teachers.
Assuming that teaching is a gift or a set of easily mastered techniques creates a wrong impression of teaching. It generates thinking that simplifies and trivializes teaching, robbing it of complexity and intellectual robustness. Out of it have come those beliefs that devalue teaching: ?If you know, you can teach it,? and ?Those who can do, those who can?t teach.?
New faculty start from a stronger position when they believe that regardless of natural ability, much about teaching still needs to be learned. Some instructional knowledge is straightforward, but just beyond those first easy answers are a slew of complicated algorithms mastered with practice and a commitment to pursue excellence. For the vast majority of teachers, learning to teach and continuing to teach well requires concerted effort and plenty of good, old-fashioned work. And like most other kinds of learning, there is always more to learn. It is impossible to know everything about doing well in the classroom and with students.
Mistaken Belief 3: Teach Like Your Best Teacher or Teach the Class You Would Like to Take
Often good teachers we?ve had have influenced our decisions to study particular fields. I?ve heard many new faculty graciously attribute their presence in the field to a previous teacher. That is wonderful?it?s a powerful reason to teach. But is it valid to assume that through emulation of others new faculty can find their way to teaching styles that works for them?
I have written previously (Weimer, 1993) of my first attempts to teach like one of my favorite teachers. He was the only teacher I?ve ever seen who had truly mastered the Socratic method. With one or two follow-up questions he could help a student transform a first feeble answer into something way more intelligent and insightful. His classroom presence loomed large and powerful. He was Italian and simply gorgeous. I aspired to teach just like he did. Of course, my efforts were a dismal failure. On my feet, in front of the class, I couldn?t think of follow-up questions to poorly framed answers. I didn?t have a commanding teaching presence. I was neither Italian or gorgeous. But even these obvious differences didn?t save me from major disappointment. I didn?t have it in me. I would never be as good as my favorite teacher was. It was years later before it came to me that wonderful as he was, he was not a good teaching model for me.
Emulating favorite teachers works only so long as the new teacher?s style is at least somewhat like the favorite. Chapter Two addresses the development of the teaching style, defined there as those behaviors used separately or in combination with other behaviors to convey the aspects of teaching excellence, things like organization and clarity, for example. Behaviors can be borrowed from favorite teachers, but what usually makes those teachers memorable is their teaching persona?how teaching reveals their personhood, their integrity, and uniqueness as human beings.
Parini (2005) describes the development of the teaching persona as the creation of masks?not to conceal identity but to represent uniqueness. These masks are fashioned from bits and pieces of how previous teachers presented themselves to students as well as from individual identity. ?Just be yourself? ? that?s the advice frequently given new teachers. ?Do what comes naturally.? Like other simplistic advice, it contains kernels of truth but ignores complicating factors like what it means to be professional in the classroom with students. Teachers should not act in the classroom like they do at home in their PJs.
On the other hand, teachers can be too professional. They get so into acting like professors, they no longer come across as persons. Students need to be able to connect with teachers as people. The ?Be yourself? advice is correct in the sense that teachers don?t want to be someone they aren?t. But it?s not always helpful advice because most new teachers don?t start out with an already developed teaching style or persona. It must be created and tried out, and first attempts are not always successful.
Parini (2005) describes his early teaching experiences. ?Sometimes I played the pipe-smoking, genial man-of-letters who just happened to wander into the classroom, almost by accident. I would sit on the edge of the desk, my tweed jacket frayed at the collar, my elbows covered in leather patches. I offered jocular (though learned) remarks instead of organized lecture notes and I replied wittily to student questions? (pp. 60-61). But this persona didn?t fit. ?I needed a bit more fire, a bit of madness,? and so he started whispering, then shouting, pacing ?like a caged animal,? even throwing chalk at the blackboard. ?Each time I acted in these extreme disguises, I came away from class feeling empty and false, something of a fool? (p. 61).
Parini?s experience illustrates the trial-and-error process of developing a teaching persona. It takes time to learn how to combine expressions of personhood with appropriate professional behavior. It takes a certain level of maturity to accept strengths and weaknesses, to understand that we simply cannot do well what some teachers do even if we may want to do it.
When I started teaching I assumed that all good teachers lectured from notes. All mine had. Right from the beginning I had a terrible time managing the notes. I?ve always moved around a lot. I would take my notes with me only to find myself someplace without them. I carried on. Then I?d find them, only now I was covering topics in a different order and couldn?t locate what I needed in my notes. But good teachers lectured from notes. Students expected it. It was a good ten years into my teaching career before I was able to accept that lecturing from notes didn?t work for me. Maybe my credibility with students suffered, but I know I did a much better job teaching without notes. I should have abandoned them years earlier.
Emulating great teachers may honor those teachers, and certainly much can be learned by seeing a masted (as well as those not as masterful) at work in the classroom teach. Techniques, approaches, even expressions of personal style can be borrowed, but the best teaching is always teaching that genuinely and authentically represents the person involved. New teachers must find their way to those teaching styles that work for them and those teaching personae that best convey their personal identity. Copying favorite teachers without reckoning differences makes discovering individual connections to teaching more difficult. Emulation makes it less likely that teachers will come to understand that even though creating a style and teaching persona seems like it?s about the teacher, it really isn?t. Truly great styles and personae are those that connect with students, those that motivate, inspire, guide, and help students to learn. And that involves a whole more than just doing what c omes naturally.
As for teaching the classes teachers would like to take, this belief rests on the premise that what helped the teacher learn will help all other students. Unfortunately, students learn in a myriad of different ways. Some may learn as their teacher do, but it is more likely that today?s college students will favor learning modes quite different from which ideas can be drawn, but good teachers discover early on that student experiences and approaches to learning are more like a river than a well. Nets work better than buckets.
Learning more about teaching is an option at every juncture in an academic career. However, what faculty believe about learning to teach will influence their attempts to learn. If they think teaching excellence is mostly a function of natural ability or the mastery of a few techniques, or if they believe development is best approached by emulating others, those beliefs stymie the kind of growth that sustains teachers and makes their teaching inspired. For career-long growth, teachers need to see learning to teach as an ongoing process with more challenging than easy answers and with authenticity better growth from within than from emulation.
References
Parini, J. The Art of Teaching. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Weimer, M. Improving Your Classroom Teaching. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993.
Mistaken Belief 1: Teaching Is a Gift
Many new teachers start out assuming that teaching is a gift?an idea introduced in principle 2 of Chapter One. Teaching does involve natural ability?some teachers are gifted with more than others. But teaching also depends on a skill set that can be learned and then molded into a unique teaching style. If new faculty equate teaching effectiveness with natural ability and things don?t go all that well in the classroom, they are left with the unhappy conclusion that they don?t have the gift. This cannot help but change feelings about teaching?especially for academics who have already excelled with complex academic content and are unused to being anything but exceptional.
Unfortunately, the equation of teaching excellence with natural abilities is reinforced by the way even some excellent teachers talk about their own teaching. They have not thought deeply about what they do and why it works. I remember a conversation I had with one of the most skilled discussion facilitators I have ever observed. ?How do I get so many students discussing? Gosh, I just ask them questions.? ?How do I keep track of all their comments? I do that? Gosh, I haven?t really thought about it before. I guess, I just listen.? ?The way I diagram discussions on the board is unique? How did I come up with that? Gosh, I guess I started doing that because I needed to keep track of where we?d been and where it looks like we?re headed. I?m a pretty visual learner.? It was as if everything that this teacher did was simple and derived by happenstance. He put on his teaching much like he dressed in the morning, by rote and habit.
Mistaken Belief 2: Mastering the Techniques of Teaching Will Be Easy
The idea of effortless teaching or just doing what comes naturally leads directly to a related mistake. Gifted teachers, those with lots of natural ability, learn from experience automatically, almost inevitably. They do what needs to be done easily, flawlessly?two tries and they?ve got it down pat. They can?t even say how they learned it.
Giving new teachers simple answers to complex problems reinforces this idea that teaching techniques are easily mastered. The advice makes it sound so easy. You have trouble with students not doing the reading? Give them a quiz. You have the same students answering every question? Call on those who don?t volunteer. You don?t have class time to waste on announcements? Post them online. How difficult can teaching be with solutions this straightforward?
Now what happens in the classroom regularly challenges the idea that teaching is easy. New teachers discover the answers don?t always take care of the problem, or in taking care of one problem, they create others. New faculty learn the hard way that acquiring techniques and using them to promote learning are not the same thing. When beliefs and experiences are at odds, new teachers start to doubt themselves and wonder about their aptitude for the profession. ?If this is so easy, why can?t I make it work??
First experiences in the classroom can be unnerving. I remember telling myself at the end of my first year teaching that if the second year wasn?t any better, I was definitely going to change careers.
Some new teachers avoid the uncomfortable question of competence by looking for other reasons that might explain less than impressive performance in the classroom. They start to play the blame game; some turn pro, making a career of blaming everything that happens in the classroom on someone or something else. Students are an easy target. They don?t listen. They show no respect. They won?t study. They aren?t well prepared. They won?t ask questions. They don?t come for help. They aren?t interested in learning. Today?s college students (especially the 18?23 year-olds) are definitely not easy to teach. But as frustrating (some days, exasperating) and disappointing as they may be, students don?t deserve to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the classroom. Sometimes the blame does belong on their shoulders?but sometimes it deserves to be shouldered by their teachers.
Assuming that teaching is a gift or a set of easily mastered techniques creates a wrong impression of teaching. It generates thinking that simplifies and trivializes teaching, robbing it of complexity and intellectual robustness. Out of it have come those beliefs that devalue teaching: ?If you know, you can teach it,? and ?Those who can do, those who can?t teach.?
New faculty start from a stronger position when they believe that regardless of natural ability, much about teaching still needs to be learned. Some instructional knowledge is straightforward, but just beyond those first easy answers are a slew of complicated algorithms mastered with practice and a commitment to pursue excellence. For the vast majority of teachers, learning to teach and continuing to teach well requires concerted effort and plenty of good, old-fashioned work. And like most other kinds of learning, there is always more to learn. It is impossible to know everything about doing well in the classroom and with students.
Mistaken Belief 3: Teach Like Your Best Teacher or Teach the Class You Would Like to Take
Often good teachers we?ve had have influenced our decisions to study particular fields. I?ve heard many new faculty graciously attribute their presence in the field to a previous teacher. That is wonderful?it?s a powerful reason to teach. But is it valid to assume that through emulation of others new faculty can find their way to teaching styles that works for them?
I have written previously (Weimer, 1993) of my first attempts to teach like one of my favorite teachers. He was the only teacher I?ve ever seen who had truly mastered the Socratic method. With one or two follow-up questions he could help a student transform a first feeble answer into something way more intelligent and insightful. His classroom presence loomed large and powerful. He was Italian and simply gorgeous. I aspired to teach just like he did. Of course, my efforts were a dismal failure. On my feet, in front of the class, I couldn?t think of follow-up questions to poorly framed answers. I didn?t have a commanding teaching presence. I was neither Italian or gorgeous. But even these obvious differences didn?t save me from major disappointment. I didn?t have it in me. I would never be as good as my favorite teacher was. It was years later before it came to me that wonderful as he was, he was not a good teaching model for me.
Emulating favorite teachers works only so long as the new teacher?s style is at least somewhat like the favorite. Chapter Two addresses the development of the teaching style, defined there as those behaviors used separately or in combination with other behaviors to convey the aspects of teaching excellence, things like organization and clarity, for example. Behaviors can be borrowed from favorite teachers, but what usually makes those teachers memorable is their teaching persona?how teaching reveals their personhood, their integrity, and uniqueness as human beings.
Parini (2005) describes the development of the teaching persona as the creation of masks?not to conceal identity but to represent uniqueness. These masks are fashioned from bits and pieces of how previous teachers presented themselves to students as well as from individual identity. ?Just be yourself? ? that?s the advice frequently given new teachers. ?Do what comes naturally.? Like other simplistic advice, it contains kernels of truth but ignores complicating factors like what it means to be professional in the classroom with students. Teachers should not act in the classroom like they do at home in their PJs.
On the other hand, teachers can be too professional. They get so into acting like professors, they no longer come across as persons. Students need to be able to connect with teachers as people. The ?Be yourself? advice is correct in the sense that teachers don?t want to be someone they aren?t. But it?s not always helpful advice because most new teachers don?t start out with an already developed teaching style or persona. It must be created and tried out, and first attempts are not always successful.
Parini (2005) describes his early teaching experiences. ?Sometimes I played the pipe-smoking, genial man-of-letters who just happened to wander into the classroom, almost by accident. I would sit on the edge of the desk, my tweed jacket frayed at the collar, my elbows covered in leather patches. I offered jocular (though learned) remarks instead of organized lecture notes and I replied wittily to student questions? (pp. 60-61). But this persona didn?t fit. ?I needed a bit more fire, a bit of madness,? and so he started whispering, then shouting, pacing ?like a caged animal,? even throwing chalk at the blackboard. ?Each time I acted in these extreme disguises, I came away from class feeling empty and false, something of a fool? (p. 61).
Parini?s experience illustrates the trial-and-error process of developing a teaching persona. It takes time to learn how to combine expressions of personhood with appropriate professional behavior. It takes a certain level of maturity to accept strengths and weaknesses, to understand that we simply cannot do well what some teachers do even if we may want to do it.
When I started teaching I assumed that all good teachers lectured from notes. All mine had. Right from the beginning I had a terrible time managing the notes. I?ve always moved around a lot. I would take my notes with me only to find myself someplace without them. I carried on. Then I?d find them, only now I was covering topics in a different order and couldn?t locate what I needed in my notes. But good teachers lectured from notes. Students expected it. It was a good ten years into my teaching career before I was able to accept that lecturing from notes didn?t work for me. Maybe my credibility with students suffered, but I know I did a much better job teaching without notes. I should have abandoned them years earlier.
Emulating great teachers may honor those teachers, and certainly much can be learned by seeing a masted (as well as those not as masterful) at work in the classroom teach. Techniques, approaches, even expressions of personal style can be borrowed, but the best teaching is always teaching that genuinely and authentically represents the person involved. New teachers must find their way to those teaching styles that work for them and those teaching personae that best convey their personal identity. Copying favorite teachers without reckoning differences makes discovering individual connections to teaching more difficult. Emulation makes it less likely that teachers will come to understand that even though creating a style and teaching persona seems like it?s about the teacher, it really isn?t. Truly great styles and personae are those that connect with students, those that motivate, inspire, guide, and help students to learn. And that involves a whole more than just doing what c omes naturally.
As for teaching the classes teachers would like to take, this belief rests on the premise that what helped the teacher learn will help all other students. Unfortunately, students learn in a myriad of different ways. Some may learn as their teacher do, but it is more likely that today?s college students will favor learning modes quite different from which ideas can be drawn, but good teachers discover early on that student experiences and approaches to learning are more like a river than a well. Nets work better than buckets.
Learning more about teaching is an option at every juncture in an academic career. However, what faculty believe about learning to teach will influence their attempts to learn. If they think teaching excellence is mostly a function of natural ability or the mastery of a few techniques, or if they believe development is best approached by emulating others, those beliefs stymie the kind of growth that sustains teachers and makes their teaching inspired. For career-long growth, teachers need to see learning to teach as an ongoing process with more challenging than easy answers and with authenticity better growth from within than from emulation.
References
Parini, J. The Art of Teaching. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Weimer, M. Improving Your Classroom Teaching. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993.
Online Classroom: Five Ways to Improve Interaction in Your Online Courses - Tips and Tools to Improve Interaction in Online Courses
Featured Higher Education Presenter: Jill Schiefelbein
Date: Wednesday, 04/06/11
Time: 12:00-1:00 PM CDT
Cost: $259 ($284 after 03/30/11)
More and more courses are moving online. That brings opportunities as well as some unique challenges.
Do you know how to maximize your effectiveness with students in an online environment?
Join us on Wednesday, April 6 for Five Ways to Improve Interaction in Your Online Courses, presented by Jill Schiefelbein of Arizona State University. A communications specialist and an accomplished public speaker, Jill has taught and developed online courses at ASU for the past eight years. Class participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of her during the presentation.
You’ll discover:
• The various online communication channels available
• The pros and cons of each
• How media richness can influence your communication choices
• Best ways to enhance communication through various channels
• How to judge where you are on the online learning curve
• Suggestions for taking the ‘next step’
• How to effectively inject your personality and engage students
Questions Welcome
Jill Schiefelbein will be setting aside time to answer questions from participants during this live and interactive seminar.
Get the Right People Aboard
If you’d like to personalize your online course, this seminar will give you the tools to do so. Those who are members of one of these groups should consider attending:
• Online instructors–professors, adjuncts, and teaching assistants
• Training coordinators
• Curriculum specialists and developers
• Supervisors or anyone involved in evaluating online instructors
• Graduate assistants or anyone who wants to teach
• Any institution considering online training for employees
A Great Value
If your college or university has numerous people involved in online instruction, here’s good news: you only pay one connection fee. That means you can fill up a room with people and only pay one low fee of $259 for this seminar.
Includes Free Discussion Guide for Facilitators
Participants can put into practice what they discover at the seminar with the free Discussion Guide for Facilitators. It contains all the tools you’ll need to help better apply what you learned during the seminar. It’s available with both the online seminar and the CD.
Date: Wednesday, 04/06/11
Time: 12:00-1:00 PM CDT
Cost: $259 ($284 after 03/30/11)
More and more courses are moving online. That brings opportunities as well as some unique challenges.
Do you know how to maximize your effectiveness with students in an online environment?
Join us on Wednesday, April 6 for Five Ways to Improve Interaction in Your Online Courses, presented by Jill Schiefelbein of Arizona State University. A communications specialist and an accomplished public speaker, Jill has taught and developed online courses at ASU for the past eight years. Class participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of her during the presentation.
You’ll discover:
• The various online communication channels available
• The pros and cons of each
• How media richness can influence your communication choices
• Best ways to enhance communication through various channels
• How to judge where you are on the online learning curve
• Suggestions for taking the ‘next step’
• How to effectively inject your personality and engage students
Questions Welcome
Jill Schiefelbein will be setting aside time to answer questions from participants during this live and interactive seminar.
Get the Right People Aboard
If you’d like to personalize your online course, this seminar will give you the tools to do so. Those who are members of one of these groups should consider attending:
• Online instructors–professors, adjuncts, and teaching assistants
• Training coordinators
• Curriculum specialists and developers
• Supervisors or anyone involved in evaluating online instructors
• Graduate assistants or anyone who wants to teach
• Any institution considering online training for employees
A Great Value
If your college or university has numerous people involved in online instruction, here’s good news: you only pay one connection fee. That means you can fill up a room with people and only pay one low fee of $259 for this seminar.
Includes Free Discussion Guide for Facilitators
Participants can put into practice what they discover at the seminar with the free Discussion Guide for Facilitators. It contains all the tools you’ll need to help better apply what you learned during the seminar. It’s available with both the online seminar and the CD.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus: $2-Billion Federal Program Could Be ‘Windfall’ for Open Online Learning
January 22, 2011
By Marc Parry
Online learning enthusiasts could get a windfall of federal money under a $2-billion grant program that the Obama Administration described on Thursday. But how big the windfall will be—if it comes at all—remains unclear.
One thing is for sure: The four-year program, designed to expand job training at community colleges, signals a major endorsement of the movement to freely share learning materials on the Internet.
That movement took hold a decade ago with MIT’s plan to publish free online syllabi, lecture notes, and other content from all of its courses. With this program, run by the Labor Department, parts of the federal government are now embracing MIT’s radical idea as official policy—dangling what could be an unprecedented amount of money for more open courses.
“With $500-million available this year, this is easily one of the largest federal investments in open educational resources in history,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement e-mailed to The Chronicle. Mr. Duncan’s agency is working with the Labor Department on the program.
So what specific tech goodies might the government invest in with all that money? Official announcements from the Labor Department and White House were short on details. But here’s what we can glean from a close look at the 53-page document that lays out the grant guidelines: The Obama administration is encouraging the development of high-quality immersive online-learning environments. It suggests courses with simulations, with constant feedback, and with interactive software that can tailor instruction and tutoring to individual students. It likes courses that students can use to teach themselves.
And it demands open access to everything: “All online and technology-enabled courses must permit free public use and distribution, including the ability to re-use course modules, via an online repository for learning materials to be established by the federal government.”
In other words, if a community college in Washington State gets a grant to build an aerospace program for workforce training, it would have to deposit all its digital stuff in an online library. Anybody who wants to use it would be able to download the content, and they would have full legal rights to reuse, revise, remix, or redistribute it, explained Cable Green, director of eLearning and open education at the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges. That’s because the government is requiring that all work supported by the grants be made available under what’s known as a “Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License,” which Mr. Green described as “one of the most open content licenses that exists.”
Beth Noveck, a professor at New York Law School and former White House technology official, wrote that the openness requirement represented “a fundamental and laudable shift in how grants are made in government.”
If all of this discussion of openness and free online courses sounds familiar, it is. The Obama administration outlined a similar great course giveaway in 2009, a $500-million proposal influenced by work done in the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University. The online proposal was part of a $12-billion plan to improve community colleges, called the American Graduation Initiative, but that plan collapsed during negotiations over legislation to overhaul student aid and the nation’s health-care system.
The prospect that similar ideas could survive through this Labor Department program thrilled openness advocates like Mr. Green. To save students money on textbooks, his state is working on an ambitious program to develop low-cost, online instructional materials for community and technical colleges. The federal money could mean more choices of content that his colleges could review for adoption in their classes.
“That’s a windfall,” he said. “The sheer volume of openly licensed content is going to expand dramatically.”
How dramatically is unclear. Creative Commons fanned excitement online with a blogpost headlined, “U.S. Department of Labor and Department of Education commit $2-billion to create open educational resources for community colleges and career training.” And Dave Cormier, a proponent of open education based at the University of Prince Edward Island, seized on that story to argue that the money “could end the textbook industry as we know it.”
But when The Chronicle forwarded the Creative Commons story to Sara Gast, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, she doused a little cold water on all the excitement. “The headline is inaccurate,” she said in an e-mail. “But at this point, as the solicitation phase is just beginning, we don’t know how much of the $2B (or even $500-million in the first year) will be spent on open educational resources.”
She added, “All of the intellectual property that is created as a result of the grants has to be shared as OERs, and it would be accurate to say that the money is available to fund open educational resources, but there is no guarantee all those funds—or even any of those funds—will be spent for that purpose. The applicants have to make their case that what they propose will help students finish college more reliably with market-ready skills, degrees and certificates. We think OERs will be an important part of that. But how much? We can’t say yet.”
By Marc Parry
Online learning enthusiasts could get a windfall of federal money under a $2-billion grant program that the Obama Administration described on Thursday. But how big the windfall will be—if it comes at all—remains unclear.
One thing is for sure: The four-year program, designed to expand job training at community colleges, signals a major endorsement of the movement to freely share learning materials on the Internet.
That movement took hold a decade ago with MIT’s plan to publish free online syllabi, lecture notes, and other content from all of its courses. With this program, run by the Labor Department, parts of the federal government are now embracing MIT’s radical idea as official policy—dangling what could be an unprecedented amount of money for more open courses.
“With $500-million available this year, this is easily one of the largest federal investments in open educational resources in history,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement e-mailed to The Chronicle. Mr. Duncan’s agency is working with the Labor Department on the program.
So what specific tech goodies might the government invest in with all that money? Official announcements from the Labor Department and White House were short on details. But here’s what we can glean from a close look at the 53-page document that lays out the grant guidelines: The Obama administration is encouraging the development of high-quality immersive online-learning environments. It suggests courses with simulations, with constant feedback, and with interactive software that can tailor instruction and tutoring to individual students. It likes courses that students can use to teach themselves.
And it demands open access to everything: “All online and technology-enabled courses must permit free public use and distribution, including the ability to re-use course modules, via an online repository for learning materials to be established by the federal government.”
In other words, if a community college in Washington State gets a grant to build an aerospace program for workforce training, it would have to deposit all its digital stuff in an online library. Anybody who wants to use it would be able to download the content, and they would have full legal rights to reuse, revise, remix, or redistribute it, explained Cable Green, director of eLearning and open education at the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges. That’s because the government is requiring that all work supported by the grants be made available under what’s known as a “Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License,” which Mr. Green described as “one of the most open content licenses that exists.”
Beth Noveck, a professor at New York Law School and former White House technology official, wrote that the openness requirement represented “a fundamental and laudable shift in how grants are made in government.”
If all of this discussion of openness and free online courses sounds familiar, it is. The Obama administration outlined a similar great course giveaway in 2009, a $500-million proposal influenced by work done in the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University. The online proposal was part of a $12-billion plan to improve community colleges, called the American Graduation Initiative, but that plan collapsed during negotiations over legislation to overhaul student aid and the nation’s health-care system.
The prospect that similar ideas could survive through this Labor Department program thrilled openness advocates like Mr. Green. To save students money on textbooks, his state is working on an ambitious program to develop low-cost, online instructional materials for community and technical colleges. The federal money could mean more choices of content that his colleges could review for adoption in their classes.
“That’s a windfall,” he said. “The sheer volume of openly licensed content is going to expand dramatically.”
How dramatically is unclear. Creative Commons fanned excitement online with a blogpost headlined, “U.S. Department of Labor and Department of Education commit $2-billion to create open educational resources for community colleges and career training.” And Dave Cormier, a proponent of open education based at the University of Prince Edward Island, seized on that story to argue that the money “could end the textbook industry as we know it.”
But when The Chronicle forwarded the Creative Commons story to Sara Gast, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, she doused a little cold water on all the excitement. “The headline is inaccurate,” she said in an e-mail. “But at this point, as the solicitation phase is just beginning, we don’t know how much of the $2B (or even $500-million in the first year) will be spent on open educational resources.”
She added, “All of the intellectual property that is created as a result of the grants has to be shared as OERs, and it would be accurate to say that the money is available to fund open educational resources, but there is no guarantee all those funds—or even any of those funds—will be spent for that purpose. The applicants have to make their case that what they propose will help students finish college more reliably with market-ready skills, degrees and certificates. We think OERs will be an important part of that. But how much? We can’t say yet.”
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