Teaching Tips: General

What have you learned that is most helpful?

Part of the point of TCE is that I want it to be a place that a new teacher or a tired teacher can find new inspiration. So I am turning to the blogosphere for inspiration. What one thing would you say is a “best tip” for teaching?

This last year I was introduced to entity and incremental theories of intelligence. In one, the student says, “I am good at this.” (Or bad at it.) In the other the student says, “I worked hard at this and I got it.” (Or didn’t work hard enough and didn’t get it.)

While it is true that some things a student may never get (I, for one, have never gotten geometry.), most things the student can get if they will keep trying.

According to research incremental theorists are more likely to succeed across diverse fields. Someone who is “good at math” may not use the same skills that make them good at math in English because they don’t realize those skills transfer.

The researcher I read said that process-oriented feedback from the teacher can help our students realize that they have incremental intelligence. “Good job! You are becoming a better writer. Keep up the good work.” Or “Study a little harder for the next test. Ask any questions you need to during our review.”

This difference made sense to me. I’ve decided to try it out. This is the first semester I have tried doing incremental encouragement, so I do not know how well it will work. But I think it would have helped me as a student.

Joe, an art teacher, answered:

This last year I was introduced to entity and incremental theories of intelligence. In one, the student says, “I am good at this.” (Or bad at it.) In the other the student says, “I worked hard at this and I got it.” (Or didn’t work hard enough and didn’t get it.)

While it is true that some things a student may never get (I, for one, have never gotten geometry.), most things the student can get if they will keep trying.

According to research incremental theorists are more likely to succeed across diverse fields. Someone who is “good at math” may not use the same skills that make them good at math in English because they don’t realize those skills transfer.

The researcher I read said that process-oriented feedback from the teacher can help our students realize that they have incremental intelligence. “Good job! You are becoming a better writer. Keep up the good work.” Or “Study a little harder for the next test. Ask any questions you need to during our review.”

This difference made sense to me. I’ve decided to try it out. This is the first semester I have tried doing incremental encouragement, so I do not know how well it will work. But I think it would have helped me as a student.

And Joel, a math teacher, chimed in:

I didn’t know I was practicing incremental intelligence theory. I had been applying the idea to my students as well as those I tutor. I don’t have any quantitative data that shows it works. But intuitively, I think it works.

This is another comment thread from a discussion post in the adjunct certification course.

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past year about what makes a good teacher. I’ve surfed the net for hours to find out what other people say about this.

Does effective = excellent? Not necessarily. I think that all excellent teachers are effective, but not all effective teachers are excellent.

Thinking back about my favorite, most inspiring, teachers, I have found that they are the ones who not only have classroom management skills, know the subject area, and can explain well, but those who have an enthusiasm for the subject and an enthusiasm for their students.

For example, I wrote a research paper for my ninth grade history teacher. I spent a lot of time on it. I did my best. It was much more work than was required for the assignment and really was several research papers in one binder. There were some problems with it. But I had worked hard on it.

Mr. Klinger gave me an A+ and included an op-ed piece from the NYTimes with my research paper when he returned it. This op-ed was written by a man whose wife was a teacher. She read him a paper because she thought it was so far above the other papers she had received over her years of teaching. But she was giving the student an A- because it wasn’t perfect. “Isn’t this the best paper you have ever received?” her husband asked. “Yes,” she answered. “Then why not give it an A+?” “Because it is not perfect.” The writer said that he thought the best paper she had ever received deserved an A+ even if it wasn’t perfect. And so, in one simple reading, Mr. Klinger made clear that my paper wasn’t perfect, but it was one of the best he had ever received.

I still have the paper and the op-ed piece. It has encouraged me many times over the years.

Mr. Klinger was an excellent teacher.

Joe responded:

Very good description of effective versus excellent. Of course, I agree with the statement “all effective teachers may not be excellent but all excellent teacher are effective.” You can be effective and teach intolerant, dishonesty, misinformation, etc.

When I wrote my essay I took “teacher” in an academic setting, but some of my most “excellent” teachers were not accredited as such (especially opening the mind after basic academic training): two examples: 1) One day, twenty-five years ago, I got a call from B. Rapaport in Waco: “You are the Joe Kagle who wrote the Sunday Op-Ed page today. I liked it. We must talk. Call my secretary and we will have lunch.” For that moment on, B and I had lunch once a month. He learned about the creative process from me and I learned about business, politics and being Jewish in America from him. He was an excellent teacher. 2) My roommate in college also came from Pittsburgh. I did not know him before then (although we went to the same high school and was in one math class together). Harry was one of those guys who could read a book and remember pages word for word. He became a lawyer. I have a visual memory, walking through a gallery and can tell you strokes on a painting, years later. I became an artist, teacher and museum director. After college, we stayed in contact, no matter where in the world we were. Many times our conversations started with “Who is the third best writer in the world that few have heard about?” or “Who is the third best American artist in the 20th century?” It was never our answers but the conversations on the process of answering that livened the talks in motion. In both instances, (with B and Harry) we were excellent teachers for each other becaise we came to the table of friendship with gifts to share.

And I, of course, came back with an equally developed post:
Absolutely not all good teachers are academic. I learn best from stories (or “case studies”) and I enjoyed reading about your two friends. I have to admit that I don’t know three American 20th century artists, though I know several excellent 20th century artists. I’m intrigued by that question.

As an English teacher, I think I ought to have an answer to “who is the third best writer that few people know about,” but I am going to have to think about that one.

For my literature courses, one of the questions I think about is “What texts are often referred to among educated people that the students haven’t read?” That question brought Frankenstein, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Gulliver’s Travels into several of my syllabi. I collect popular culture or news references to literary works and file them so that I can discuss relevance with my students.

The ability to ask thoughtful questions is part of what makes life interesting.

I have found that sometimes my students can be the ones who are asking those questions. My first year teaching developmental writing, I learned more about the whys of grammar than I had ever even thought of before. This last semester I had a group of highly inquisitive and motivated students. They also kept me learning.

I wonder if I could do more to elicit those kinds of questions from my students… Hmm. Maybe in Brit Lit I could ask them what they would have wanted to learn about a section that I didn’t cover. Since it is a required course I am not sure that asking them what they want to know would elicit any useful information. I’ll have to think about that.

Joe answered:

One thing that I have used (because it worked for me) is: If you change the venue you sometimes may create the inherent questions that follow. Let me give you an example: I was in charge of an art festival at Washington and Jefferson College in PA and I asked Kimon Frair to attend and give a lecture on The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis. He came, was marvelous, started some questions in my mind, we ate and drank together, and he left and returned to Greece. Shortly after that I was asked to teach on World Campus Afloat and we anchored in Athens harbor. Kimon took my wife and I around to all the sites, danced and drank with us in the tavernas, and told stories of Greek myths and modern adventures by Kazantzakis and others. It was life changing. It opened questions for me that I am still pondering. When I returned to the States, I asked myself: “Why can’t we change the venue for students in their own background? We are all foreigners in our own neighborhood.” So I asked the students to read Coleridge’s Kubla Khan for romanticism, view the works of artists after the French revolution, visit the Buddhist church in Houston, visit a neighborhood that they had never visited around here, and then write an essay about Romanticism (”about feeling” that they found in one work of art).” Of course, some took the exercise to heart and some just went through the motions (having wonderful excuses for not extending their reach).

In the same class last year I brought in a Buddhist monk (a friend from Japan who was originally from Germany) to talk to my class about dedication and how one got into the monestary to study Buddhist. It was, again, for some, a life changing experience and for at least 2/3 just “something else” they had to endure to get credits. We teach for the many but we really only reach a few deeply. Still, changing the venue from the genre to the “new” does help some (in part all) to relate and ask questions.

This is a rumination from my adjunct certification course.

I am taking an online class for educators because I think that learning helps me to grow. One of the other students has been teaching college for 50 years! And while he’s not a character, he seems to have the most intriguing stories. I’m a sucker for good stories. In answer to one set of questions he wrote about his friend from college with whom he has deep discussions. One of the questions he shared from their conversations was: Who is the third best writer that few people know about?

His post made me think and I wanted to post my response here so that I would remember it.

As an English teacher, I think I ought to have an answer to “who is the third best writer that few people know about,” but I am going to have to think about that one.

For my literature courses, one of the questions I think about is “What texts are often referred to among educated people that the students haven’t read?” That question brought Frankenstein, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Gulliver’s Travels into several of my syllabi. I collect popular culture or news references to literary works and file them so that I can discuss relevance with my students.

The ability to ask thoughtful questions is part of what makes life interesting.

I have found that sometimes my students can be the ones who are asking those questions. My first year teaching developmental writing, I learned more about the whys of grammar than I had ever even thought of before. This last semester I had a group of highly inquisitive and motivated students. They also kept me learning.

I wonder if I could do more to elicit those kinds of questions from my students… Hmm. Maybe in Brit Lit I could ask them what they would have wanted to learn about a section that I didn’t cover. Since it is a required course I am not sure that asking them what they want to know would elicit any useful information. I’ll have to think about that.

I am also wondering if I can get my freshman composition students to pose thoughtful questions about their controversial issues papers. How would I do that?

Who does extra credit?

Early in the semester the people who do extra credit are the A students. Towards the end of the semester, if you are giving grades out regularly, more students who actually need it will get involved.

But most of the time, the students who need it the most won’t do it. So be prepared for that. As a teacher invested in the class, it can be a bit disheartening.

Why give extra credit?

There are many different reasons, but a big one is to get students to do something that is outside the normal parameters of your classroom.

One of my schools only allows extra credit to encourage the students to attend campus events. Obviously in an English class, they then have to write about it.

What if you want to give a new assignment, but you are unsure about its usability?

Give extra credit. The better students will do the project, whatever it is. If they do it well, you will know it can work. If they do it poorly, you will know it needs to be restructured.

What if you had a great assignment, but you can’t integrate it into the class?

Give extra credit. Over the years I have developed some learning units (as Blackboard calls them) that are very good, fun, and cool. [And, yes, I am reading The Rhetoric of Cool.] But as I get new texts, which don’t have the sections those assignments were created for, I drop them out of my class. But I still like them. They are still good and useful. There was a point to them and, if I liked them all that much, I received well-written papers. So I give them as extra credit.

How can I argue for extra credit?

As a writing instructor, the more students write, the more they learn. That’s one argument for it.

Another argument for it is that extra credit assignments can be given which involve the students in campus life and getting students involved on campus increases student retention. (That’s always a big deal with colleges.) You can send them to see the school play and they can write a critique. They can go to the campus art show and discuss their favorite and least favorite works. If you have multiple school eateries, they could try them out and write a compare/contrast paper. There are lots of assignments you could create to get the students involved on campus and writing.

How should extra credit be given?

I usually assign the easier projects as extra credit early in the semester. Then as the semester progresses, the extra credit assignments become more involved. That means that the students who need to do more work to improve their grade will be doing the equivalent of an extra day or two in class.*

The only exceptions to this are for
1) new projects I want to try out and
2) projects which get my students involved with the campus (as an aspect of student retention).

How should extra credit be graded?

Don’t spend hours grading extra credit. Think about what you are looking for ahead of time. Determine to what part of the grade it will be added, assuming your assignments have different weights. And decide, for yourself, how many points it is worth. I don’t always say how much it is worth. I do say something like, “This will go towards your homework average.”

And I give more than 100% averages if the student earned them. If I have a student who does all the homework and the homework extra credit, that student might end up with a 115 on that part of the average. So they have 115 on 20%. I find that it is an encouragement to the students to let them know that you will go over 100, if they make that.

Then when you receive the assignment, read through it. Is it exactly what you were looking for? Give the full number of points. Is it adequate? Give 3/4s. Is it done but not very good? Give half. Is it awful? Give 5-10%. (I don’t ever give 0 on an extra credit assignment unless it is plagiarized.) Is it exceptional, far beyond what you were looking for? Give 110-125%.

How should extra credit be weighted?

If I want the students to do something I meant to get to in class but didn’t have time for, I offer “on the spot” extra credit. It usually goes towards their homework average and I don’t say how much credit it will get because it will depend on how much the student produces.

If the assignment is fairly straightforward (go here, read this, write a narrative paragraph of your experience), then it should be weighted lightly. If the assignment has a few pages of reading or requires a few pages of writing (but still fairly straightforward), then I give 100 points in the homework section.

I have thirty to forty-five assignments that go into that, so that helps their grade a little, but not a lot.

If the assignment is involved, then I will give credit towards a major grade. For instance, we have six journal assignments that are 10% of the grade this semester. If the students find someone in their discipline or field and interview them about the discipline/field, using questions we came up with as a class, and write up a two to three page paper discussing what they learned and how it effects their attitude or future, then I give more substantial credit. It is usually enough to replace half of a journal assignment that got left undone.

What are some sample extra credit projects?

This example of a project is something you couldn’t do in a class unless you are in a computer lab. So it is perfect for extra credit.

Read Murphy’s Laws of Teaching.
Write down three that you have experience with. Write a one paragraph description of your experience with each.
This extra credit will add to your homework average.

I have thousands of total points in homework. Again, if someone did an outstanding job, I would give them outstanding credit. Usually though it’s 50 to 100 points.

Schedule an interview with a teacher or someone who works in your major area. Call to get an appointment. The interview must be completed within two weeks. Keep the appointment, ask the questions, listen, take notes or tape the interview, and write up the interview.

This is the assignment that I wrote about earlier. It follows our discussion of interviews in class where we come up with interview questions as a group.

Read Killian Advertising.
Comment on which of the reasons for terrible cover letters you think is most likely and why.
Pick two of the bloopers that don’t have editorial comment [The parts in green italics in square brackets.] and tell what is wrong with them. Please copy the two bloopers, too, so I will know what they are.

This one is fun and makes them think about the audience reading their papers more.

The following is an extra credit assignment during the research paper section:

Pick a good argument on the side you agree with. State the argument in on or two sentences. Then refute the argument; that is, tell why the argument is problematic. In other words, why might the argument not convince someone? (1.5-2 pages)

They have read articles on both sides of their issue by this time and should have a good grasp of their situation.

Do I have to give extra credit?

Absolutely not. But I find that structuring it ahead of time (except for on-campus events) lets me know that students can do better if they want to. This eases my conscience when they aren’t doing as well as they (or I) know they can.

*I believe that writers become better by understanding what they are trying to do and then doing it. A lot.

Disclaimer
First, let me make clear my position. I’ve been in groups since high school where I did all the work and everyone else got the same grade. It happened even when the teacher knew that someone in the group did nothing. So I’m not a big fan of group work for grades.

I know that the “real world” (because of course academia, which can take up most of your life for sixteen years, isn’t real) requires group work. I figure that my students should have to deal with the frustration only when it’s necessary. It’s not necessary in my classroom and I try not to create a situation where it would be.

That said, however, there is still a place for group work.
Students like to work in groups. Humans are social creatures, even most introverts enjoy spending time with people special to them.

Students like to talk. We all like to talk. And we like people to listen. Always lecturing in class indulges us as teachers, but it doesn’t give the students a voice. But having group work, where the students are not only encouraged but expected to talk, allows them to take the stage in their education. It’s a useful place for them to be.

Students need involvement with the academic community in order to succeed within the academy (according to Tinto, writing on student retention). Putting students in groups in class makes that connection between students more likely to happen. Being in a group won’t guarantee that any student will finish their degree, but it does, at the least, give them a place to talk about your class.

Group work that really works.
I like to assign in class group work. Let the students be doing stuff together in a place where I can see who is and isn’t doing something.

Assign jobs. Have one person be the secretary and another be the speaker, when the group work is done to say what their group did.

Make the groups small. Big groups encourage the extrovert and hide the shy student. That’s not what we’re looking for. I like groups of three, but will accept four if there is a need to get everyone in a group.

Have the groups write down who did what. You’ll get a consensus if everyone worked and if someone didn’t, you’ll probably hear about that too.

Suggested group assignments.
After an in-class reading, put the students in a group to answer the questions. At the end, either take up answers or give each group a different question to answer aloud or both.

Assign a short reading to the group and have them tell the rest of the class what they learned from it. You can have questions, or not, to get them started.

What if, for whatever reason, there is no text for your course? Maybe they had to add another section or the bookstore messed up or the publisher went defunct. Or maybe you just didn’t like any of your options and wanted to try to go it alone. What can you do?

Use the Net
First, of course, is going to be finding help on the net. The internet is available to most students at home and all students at school. If you find useful online tools, the students won’t have to print them out and neither will you, which saves money and trees.

Assuming that your school offers access to the computer in each classroom for presentation purposes, you could even introduce things from the net there.

What kinds of things can you find?

Think about your favorite things from old textbooks, either from teaching or going to school. What were the great assignments? readings? activities? Look for those kinds of things.

A general intro to college
I use an introduction to college written by a biology professor at a residential university, Dr. Mom’s Guide to College. Some of what she says isn’t relevant to my students, but if they have more questions, they know the site is there.

Models for writing
There are good models for writing up there too. I found an excellent example of a cause/effect essay that I now use in my classroom.

Exercises and activities
Of course, being a Purdue alum, I love the OWL (online writing lab), which has great grammar exercises and activities and explanations on avoiding plagiarism.

Purdue is not the only useful source though. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign even has a resource page for other writing centers that teachers might want. Malaspina has a collection of Writing Across the Curriculum discussions that include examples of assignments in different disciplines.

Litertature backgroud info
Introductions to various texts and types of essays are also online. For instance, I was teaching Gulliver’s Travels and went looking for a history of satire, especially as it related to the work. I found a good definition, a very short history with an emphasis on the book, and a much more detailed history of satire from Encarta. All of these together helped me to prepare my introduction to satire in Gulliver.

Or sometimes I can find a helpful site with lots of information. Perspectives in American Literature by Professor Reuben has lots of research and reference information including biographies of authors, study questions, and bibliographies.

The sites your students will use
There are lots of summary sites, like SparkNotes, PinkMonkeyNotes, and BookRags. They allow the students to know things about texts without having read them.

I use them to make sure my essay questions aren’t on the site. Or to make sure that I ask something that isn’t on the site. (Bad grad school experience with a fellow student making A’s reading Cliff Notes while I was struggling.)

Sometimes, though, I will finish a work in class and have them take a quiz online. If we’re reading in class and they aren’t expecting a quiz, they won’t have found them. I got a quiz on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland off GradeSaver that is a good fact quiz. The students like it because it is multiple choice. I like it, too.

Questions
I often have students write about a work that we have read in class, because I use the in-class reading time to model reading for them. They then go home and write about it. Often times I don’t have a clear view of what they can answer. I love to read. I love to write. I can have too high of expectations sometimes. So I go see what other people have done. Sometimes I will use a few of their questions, too.

I found good Paradise Lost questions at Drake’s site and at Boyer’s.

Offer good information, with enrichment.

Just lecturing is not a good way to get your students engaged. However, lectures with enrichment can make quite a difference.

For example, in Early British Literature, we read quite a few works. After we’ve read the Old English translations and as we are moving on to the Middle English, I give a lecture on the rise and fall of women’s rights in England during those ages. (I use a lot of Christine Fell’s work for this.) We have some discussion of how the OE period showed women’s rights. Then, after the ME texts are read, I ask the students to write a paper comparing the two using at least two works per period. I gave a lecture; we had a discussion; they wrote a paper.

Or I discuss description. We go through some description exercises (such as this one), then read the Exeter Riddles (as discussed in Description Papers), and write our own riddles.

Provide note-taking handouts.

If I am going to often be talking about something each class, I work up a note-taking handout. It has a general outline format, which I follow in my lecture, and let the students fill in the blanks.

When you are doing this, make sure that the blanks they have to fill in are the important things. Don’t give them the most essential information pre-printed. Doing this helps them follow your lecture more easily and indicates which parts you think are most important.

Then test them over those!

Read the texts online

This is especially true in literature.

Online Books Page from University of Pennsylvania.

Project Gutenberg

Internet Public Library

But even if the work you want isn’t in these, it may still be on the net.

For dramas, I like to go find the works and watch them as plays. They weren’t written to be read, though we English teachers like to do that. They were written to be seen. Perhaps two presentations of the same play, both fairly close to the original writing, would be a way to look at “different readings” of the same text. You can find a lot of videos through the college and local libraries.

Other people’s experiences

Apparently math is a bigger discipline for textbook-free classes. As you can imagine English teachers are much more book oriented.

Five Positive Sutdent Outcomes from the Textbook-free Algebra Class

Free online textbooks, videos, tutorials, and lecture notes on mathematics

And, this one is fun, Textbook Free for All.

A new wiki-project has been started at the University of Georgia, which aims to pool knowledge in free online texts. …When Watson was asked to teach a course on a type of computer language called XML. He found no decent textbooks — and so asked his 2004 class to create one as part of their studies. Others encouraged him to expand the idea and now, he says, “It’s my weekend and evening job”. More than 100 people in 20 countries are now involved, including Uganda, Ethiopia, India, Columbia and Indonesia. Some teachers in developing countries have already suggested a particular need for textbooks in agriculture, public health and wireless technology. The project is still embryonic.

Maybe you can write an online textbook as part of this wiki-project. (Would that count as publishing?)

Don’t despair.

If, for whatever reason, you don’t have a textbook, don’t despair. Think of it as a grad-school level challenge and maybe, just maybe, you will come up with something better than a text.

What We Learn from Writing on the Job is an article by Lester Faigley and Thomas P. Miller in College English, Vol. 44, No. 6. (Oct., 1982), pp. 557-569.

I read this article in 1994. Below is my review at the time:

“What We Learn from Writing on the Job” did not tell me much that I did not already know. Having taught business and professional writing at the university level for the last five years, I have read this article before and used a similar study done by IBM to acquaint my students with the necessity of writing on the job. I had forgotten the high percentage of collaboration and the different types of writing done by the average in-house writer, so those numbers were interesting to re-read.

It’s been fourteen years since I last wrote it and I have not taught business writing since then, except for one not-so-great interview experience.

So I thought I would re-read it.

Here are my new thoughts:

The article discusses issues that were certainly relevant in the 80s, a lack of study on writing at work, for example. But this deficiency has been fixed and is no longer a problem.

However, there is one point that is useful for college English teachers and our students:

By the measure of the median the 200 people we surveyed wrote 2.9 letters and memos to persons inside their company or agency and 5.2 letters to persons outside in a given week. Only 17 individuals did not write letters or memos on the job.

This might be something we can share with our students. Writing is necessary, even when you are not an English teacher.

We want our students to think that we know what we are doing. It makes it easier to control the classroom and, for them, it makes it easier to do the assignments. So how do we establish credibility?

One study examined the question of what kinds of offices make professors credible.

Students in the study were taken to an office (the same one portrayed three different ways). They were told they were going to speak to the professor. The same grad student took the students to the office, gave them the same spiel, and, after the same amount of time, said the professor wasn’t coming and asked them to fill out a survey. The survey included questions regarding the credibility of the professor whom they had not met.

One version of the office was pristine and professional. It was tidy and had diplomas on the wall.

One version of the office was messy, with papers everywhere and books open.

One version of the office was very personal, filled with green plants and family pictures.

The results of the survey showed that, in comparison to students in the control group who were not escorted to the professor’s office, all the students who went to the office graded the professor higher in credibility. It did not matter which office the students came to, it only mattered if they came to an office.

So, if you want to help your students and increase your credibility, make sure your students get into your office during the semester.

I would expect that early is better than later in terms of the usefulness of credibilty to the class situation, but get them in.

From a master’s thesis at Illinois State University by Jason Teven.