Teaching Philosophy [The first version of this essay appeared in History Computer Review, 17: 1 (Spring 2001): 19-29. The first page provides a short list of items that constitute my teaching philosophy. The remainder of the essay develops each of the points in detail. Yes, I take teaching seriously. I hope that you take learning seriously. Together, we can do some things! ]
- My overall philosophy is to focus on active-learning activities, using IGL, Inquiry-Guided Instruction. Inquiry, jointly constructed knowledge, should predominate. See this our approach to history page for a discussion of how we look at history.
- Teach the students you have, not the ones you imagine should be there.
- Teach students to exercise the core skills involved in historical and critical thinking.
- Equip students with "real-world" employment skills for the information
economy: research, analysis and communication (written and oral). Encourage those qualities and skills that potential employers hold in high regard.
- Demonstrate links between the classroom and the "real world," between historical events and processes and a student's life.
- Encourage student participation and inclusiveness by teaching to a variety of learning styles.
- Encourage students to learn from and teach one another.
Historians and other teachers often spend too much time focused on technique and technology. We fixate on means and thereby lose sight of the ends. In this article, I try to illustrate how to bridge the gap; how to connect more general, conceptual and pedagogical classroom issues with appropriate tools. My goal is to help you visualize more direct, supporting links between what and how you want students to learn and which technologies can facilitate those goals.
Back in 1976, James E. Stice offered in a few pages excellent advice on preparing and systematically designing a course and its objectives. He also listed ten characteristics of the good teacher: S/he "knows the subject matter, is competent; presents well-prepared lectures; relates the subject to life; encourages students' questions and opinions; is enthusiastic about the subject; is approachable, friendly and available; is concerned with students' progress; has a sense of humor; is warm, kind and sympathetic; and uses teaching aids effectively." Although I seldom lecture per se, for more than a few minutes, I subscribe to Stice's suggested profile.
I have a rather simple, straightforward teaching philosophy, summarized in the six points below. We might quibble about them, and some of them may not suit your institution and your students. However, for now, humor me, OK? I want to use these points to illustrate how technology intersects with and provides "scaffolding" (sorry, but that seems to be the ed-speak buzz word of the year) for these objectives.
1. The Students: Every teacher would love to be surrounded by bright, motivated students who love history as much as does the instructor. In reality, we face a wide range of interests, goals, backgrounds, and abilities in our student populations. Our job is to deliver what each students needs as best we can. In my case, I teach mostly non-history majors taking my courses to fulfill a GER, General Education Requirement. Time of day and that reality that modern U. S. history courses are already filled often lead students to my doorway.
As pre-registration week ends, I zip off an email to all students who have registered for my courses. I invite them to examine the online syllabus, carefully noting that assignments and specifics are still subject to change. I emphasize the participatory format and direct their attention to my very strict attendance policy. At that point, some 10-20% drop, opening some of the 25-35 seats per class to other students. I also invite students to voice any special topics of interest, some of which I add some into the course.
I repeat the email process several times, adding more information about the course each time. Among other things, this helps move my course from the back to a front burner-- sort of a preemptive strike. I point out to students that they come to the course with a variety of learning styles. They must take a brief online learning style inventory. They print out their learning style profile, and we discuss various learning styles on day one. This is one of many examples of how online technology saves valuable classroom time. I could pass out the inventory in class, and we could take it then and there. That, however, would burn 20 minutes of class time. Furthermore, students have time to reflect on their profiles before talking about them in class.
I also plan to add a new first-day requirement: posting a brief autobiography on an online discussion site. I use a variety of in-class introduction techniques early in the semester, but students self-disclose differently in-person than online. I believe that we get to know more about some students through the online mini-bio than from class comments.
Because ours is a technological campus, most students enjoy doing things online. It's my suspicion that I can get more work out of them simply by having assignments done electronically, rather than with old-fashioned paper and pen. In addition, by having an assignment due (ungraded) on day one, I have again moved my class up the student priority list.
The teaching literature
is unanimous on the importance of the first day. "A good start,"
note Rebecca Brent and Richard M. Felder, of North Carolina State University,
"can carry a professor through several weeks of early shakiness,
and a bad one can take several weeks of damage control to overcome."
On day one, I also use a rather involved, and, if I do say so, "cute"
PowerPoint introduction to my teaching philosophy. The presentation
contrasts what I call the "Borg model of pedagogy," (resistance
is futile, you will be assimilated) with my "learning community
approach." I could stand and just talk at the students, but the
animations, colors, and sounds effects of PowerPoint enliven the presentation
considerably. There are several discussion break points where we briefly
consider a variety of learning issues. Students get a sense of how
the class will operate-- discussion and the joint construction of knowledge,
not a lecture mode. Furthermore, I establish some credibility with
technologically savvy students. I can imagine the comments after class,
"hey, this geezer is just a historian, but check out the cool
Borg sound clips."
Some students are satisfied to take a course at face value and to jump through the hoops. Others, however, wish to know more about the "why" of a course. Why do we do what we do? What value is it to you? To explain the "whys" of the course, I use as my heuristic a "learning community." We each bring different experiences, learning styles, interests, ideas, goals, commitment, and information resources to the course. Together we engage in a process of discovery and problem solving. Under old "Borg" pedagogical assumptions, faculty transmitted Knowledge ("Wisdom") to students. In our learning community, students and faculty jointly construct Knowledge. Instead of playing the role of passive learners or empty vessels, students should be active learners and intellectual partners.
2. Historical and Critical Thinking: Students need to learn to think historically and critically. I want students to think and work like historians, to utilize a historical perspective when examining evidence. Students must learn to locate and evaluate evidence. To that end, I have students critique web sites, just as they would analyze a primary source document or review a scholarly journal article or a monograph. For better or worse, students increasingly go to the Web for information. Who better than a historian to teach them how to separate the wheat from the considerable chaff?
After uncovering and evaluating evidence, students must persist in the process of discovery and inquiry long and diligently enough to formulate an interpretation of past events. Students validate sources (are they bogus or forgeries?), analyze the preponderance of evidence, develop an interpretation of past events, and critique/compare their analysis against those of other scholars.
Intrinsically tied to historical inquiry are critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is not the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, the mere possession of a set of skills, nor the mere use of those skills (as a plug and chug exercise). Critical thinking is not about training seals, but about encouraging creative thinking. Critical thinking is an intellectually disciplined process in which one actively and skillfully finds and evaluates evidence [locate data; determine whether it is reliable and valid] conceptualizes [puts data together with ideas so that it all makes sense] analyzes [thinks critically about the concepts and data; breaks it all into meaningful pieces] synthesizes [shape the pieces into a logical, consistent whole], and applies the analysis and interpretation as a guide to belief and action.
In emphasizing critical thinking, however, we do well to remember Virginia Lee's admonition that we not ignore the affective domain. We should be "educating the whole person: heart, body, and mind." "Training young minds," she writes, "instructors must also nurture and evoke the persons those minds inhabit," by creating an environment that "engages students at all levels--cognitive, physical, emotional--and helps them integrate and internalize academic experiences in their interactions with others."
I'm at work on another essay titled "Using Software to Encourage Critical Thinking." I believe that several genres of software can encourage students to conceptualize historical problems better. I'll simply summarize the four main types here. Storing historical information in databases forces students to categorize and organize the data logically. Second, outlining programs help students create information hierarchies. The ability of such software to collapse and expand views also helps students visualize their work at various perceptual levels. Third is mind mapping® software, based on work done by Tony Buzan. A mind map consists of a central word or concept, embellished by additional main ideas related to it. MindMapper and Visual Mind are two programs of this genre. A similar, but, in my view, more powerful tool, concept-mapping software, is discussed below.
3. Real-world Skills: Every course, including history classes, should have real-world applications. Most of my students will not go on to seek doctorates in Latin American history (although I can certainly help those for whom that is a goal.) All students, however, need to develop “real-world” workplace skills and learn to meet professional duties and demands responsibly. To that end, I teach sound, essential research and writing skills, using today's software, necessary to any job in our information age.
Students must also learn to take responsibility for their actions and to meet requirements placed upon them-- again real-life demands for any employment. Some students erroneously think of college in general and history in particular as unrelated to the “real world.” Without pandering to superficial cries of relevancy nor caving in to crass vocationalism, we can help bridge this divide. I encourage students to think of my course as a “real world” job. The syllabus is set up something like a job description to reinforce the point.
Students have responsibilities here just as they would for paid employment. I have designed these responsibilities to reflect frequent complaints voiced by “real world” employers about young employees. Desirable job-related skills include learning to learn; reading, writing, and computation; oral communication and listening; creative thinking and problem solving; personal management (self-esteem, goal setting, motivation, personal/career development); group effectiveness (interpersonal skills, negotiation, teamwork); and organizational effectiveness and leadership. I have designed my courses to encourage these work place virtues.
As with the above skills, computer literacy is essential to all information age workers, so I include lots of computer-related technology and tasks in my courses. I have developed a wide range of teaching-related Internet sites that help students to handle electronic and other forms of information more critically. Students must find, read, and analyze Internet sources. They participate in online discussions using WebCT software. Many students make PowerPoint presentations or incorporate Internet sites into their oral presentations. I plan to add more analysis of statistical tables and graphs, using Excel. This will demonstrate to students that not all history data are "squishy," that facts do indeed exist. It will also assist visual learners and the mathematically minded to see information in a format consistent with their needs.
I strongly believe in and practice "writing across the curriculum." Students learn to utilize the full gamut of writing software available. Many have not taken advantage of grammar checking programs to identify the passive voice, wordy constructions, and other writing flaws. Although limited, computerized grammar checking helps take writing out of a mysterious black box. It shows students, with its green squiggly underscores, what to look at and how to improve their writing, line by line.
In some cases, I have students submit papers electronically, rather than on paper. That way I can run a grammar checker on the file. I can also highlight sections in various colors, red for grammar problems, blue for passive voice, yellow for issues of organization and logic. Visual learners, in particular, benefit from a more graphical display of their writing problems. In any case, I can type comments much more legibly and quickly than I can scrawl them on a piece of paper. I can also insert "boilerplate" of more extended suggestions on providing supporting evidence, the importance of identifying historical actors and sources, as well as other issues.
I teach an online section of one of my courses, HI 216: Latin American Since 1826. (Demand for the online course, judged by emails requests to add, is routinely two-to-three times more than the thirty students that I can accommodate.) Given that all assignments must be written in an Internet environment, those students get even more intensive writing instruction. Here is a sample of feedback that I provide. My comments are italicized. They appear highlighted in different colors in the actual files.
Essay topic 2: What forces, events and ideas led to Latin American independence? [My overall evaluation.] Grade C, 22 of 30 points. Most major causes covered, except for the actions of the Spanish monarchy, the Bourbon Reforms. Again, we need supporting evidence throughout. See the model essay for examples. Create clear tight paragraphs. Percentage of passive voice is 19-- nearly double the maximum allowable. In the next batch of essays, I will deduct points for excessive use of the passive. Again, review the procedure for fixing the passive on the link to the "Writing Help" page.
[Fragment of student text with my interspersed comments.] The Enlightenment, a period in which there was search for useful knowledge, [yes, but what specific ideas motivated Latin Americans to revolt? Also note the influence and precedent of such early movements as the Comuneros in Colombia, inspired by Enlightenment thought.] also greatly influenced the attitudes of Latin Americans. Many intellectual writers [such as?] came about during this time. Their works concentrated on the grandeur of their native lands.
4. Links from Classroom to Students and the Real World: Students, especially young ones, are not accustomed to viewing themselves as historical actors. I take pains to help them develop a historical perspective about themselves and about their society. We discuss how one can learn from the past. A truism to historians-- that a person or a nation without knowledge of the past is like an amnesiac wandering through life without memory -- is not necessarily a fact of life for an eighteen-year-old. Nor are many students aware of their own cultural blinders, so that problem should be addressed in an area studies class, like Latin American history.
How do we get students to deal with the values and perspectives of other cultures? Again, the Internet comes to the rescue. I require that students give 4-6 brief oral current events reports per semester. I've compiled a set of links to Latin American online newspapers. Students who can read Spanish or Portuguese get extra credit for reporting stories written in those languages. Other students can access about a dozen English-language newspapers published in Latin America. They get very different interpretations of events that I could not impart any other way, given the slim print library holdings from the region.
Secondly, students can connect their own interests with the Latin American context. I make no limitations on the subject matter. Thus we might hear about a new WalMart in Acapulco, Brazilian cinema, anorexia in Buenos Aires, soccer, and often wacky, local interest stories. In each case, I try to contextualize and historicize the news item to illustrate how the long arm of the past reaches into the present and future.
Third, these reports allow students to teach one another and to teach me. In many cases, students locate information about events or topics that I know little or nothing about. I make a special point of showing that I am learning from them, that we have a reciprocal relationship in our learning community.
5. Learning Styles: Neither learning nor life is a spectator sport. I utterly reject the passive learning model demanded by some students: entertain me but don't bother me. Brazilian educator and author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire (1921-97), rightly criticized the "banking" concept of education: "Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat."
Intellectual exchanges involving all students and the instructor enrich learning for all. Students must learn to communicate their knowledge, in writing and orally, to others. I use a variety of mechanisms to encourage students to communicate their interpretations of the past. Students write one-page responses to "thought questions" based on a set of readings. We also edit these short papers in class so that students get help with both thinking about and writing history.
Using these papers as a security blanket, students then engage in small group and general class discussions, sharing their ideas with classmates. Their ideas become the basis for a socially constructed picture of the historical topic for that day. With traditional technology, I break a big question into pieces and write student responses at random on the board. After we've accumulated a set of concepts and examples, we collectively try to put them into logical categories.
I intend to begin using concept-mapping software called "Inspiration" to jot down ideas instead of scribbling on the chalkboard. "Concept mapping requires that students think about a knowledge domain in meaningful ways in order to represent what they know. By using this computer tool as a cognitive or learning strategy, learners can sharpen inference-making and critical thinking skills and can avoid the acquisition and accumulation of inert (unusable) knowledge." Concept mapping provides relational diagrams of information. Using a brainstorming mode, one simply types a phrase into an idea circle, square, or other object. Once the data are gathered, the class can collectively try to establish logical, causative, and other relationships between the points. One can chart hierarchical relationships, draw networks, or otherwise help students visualize ideas. With a click, one can try out different visualizations of the information, including a simple outline format. Again, for our student population, heavy on engineers and science majors, such visualization helps them cope with the largely "black-on-white" print world of the historian.
In upper-division courses, pairs of students serve as discussion facilitators, again an ungraded exercise. I give students a tutorial in effective discussion leadership--another valuable, real-world skill. I want to encourage students to take advantage of this experience to learn how to communicate effectively. These skills are a big part of success in later life.
However, no instructor has time to discuss all the important issues in class. Thus in all courses, students also share their ideas online via WebCT software. By having half the class post their ideas and the other half respond to these initial posts, I simulate an interactive discussion format. I have found that students who are quiet or shy in class often shine during online exchanges. Students are only required to do a brief 100-word posting to get credit. However, discussions often continue into interactive exchanges, as students want to follow, expand, challenge, and respond to one another. Again, I expand the classroom time available by promoting valuable intellectual exchanges between students outside class. Moreover, no one can complain about no being able to meet.
I generally teach on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule. I don't like the long five-day break over the weekend when students can shelve my class and not think about it. I always make Net Forum postings due during that Friday-Monday period, so that my class again pushes its way into their consciousness. I also often send out class emails over the weekend-- reminders, announcements of a TV documentary or local lecture. Again, that pushes my class into their world, without costing me class time.
I also want to avoid the traditional roller coaster class schedule, with huge peaks at mid-semester and end-of-semester and low troughs for weeks on end with little or nothing to engage students. Thus I give many more small assignments and no big, make-or-break projects. This keeps students engaged continually throughout the semester, so that we avoid the "cram-too-late and flunk" syndrome.
While recognizing that computers can empower students and teachers, we must also recognize the "dark side" of new technologies. Easy access to electronic media has created a major headache for all teachers: e-plagiarism. I avoid the issue by not assigning traditional research papers that might tempt marginal students to purchase an essay online or to cut-and-paste with online resources. Furthermore, students must be able to produce notes, full citations, and drafts for any major essay that involves research beyond the assigned texts. Internet search engines, of course, make it easy to search for key text strings. Thus a suspicious instructor can quickly discover whether a student has plagiarized an online source.
6. Collaborative Learning: I encourage students to learn to work together and to teach one another. "Collaborative Learning (CL) encourages active student participation in the learning process. It encompasses a set of approaches to education, sometimes also called cooperative learning or small group learning. CL creates an environment 'that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing,' and reaches students who otherwise might not be engaged."
All classes must complete group research projects and presentations. These collaborative learning exercises usually require both library and Internet research. Students must take a large topic, divide it up amongst themselves, develop a research strategy, locate and compare sources, and present the information in written and oral reports. Students must "take ownership" of these projects, work out the logistics, and coordinate their efforts, just like private-sector work groups. Students can use group email, list-servs, and online discussion forums to facilitate their collaboration. After all, that's how the "real world" works.
Although I do not (yet) require it, most groups do PowerPoint presentations. For cultural topics, students generally incorporate web sites with Latin American music or video clips. I will likely add creating a substantive web page to the course requirements. Students come to the groups with varying technical expertise and different strengths. They seem to nicely thrash out a division of labor that involves teaching one another skills they may have lacked before.
Finally, I've created a wide range of web-based supporting materials so that students have ready access to vital information. These web materials include help with writing, researching the Internet, constructing web pages, learning theories, and historical timelines. I've also gathered quotations about history, writing, and teaching. I sometimes pop a few of these quotations up just to generate discussion-- sort of an icebreaker technique.
Student Reactions: Given that I have only implemented these changes recently, I do not have a long track record of student evaluations. For the spring 2000 semester, 27 of 35 students completed an evaluation form. The class met for three hours one evening each week. One hundred percent replied that they would recommend the course to a friend. One student hedged a bit: “Yes, if they wanted to work. No, if they were a slacker.” All students also answered yes to the following question: “Do you feel that the material was organized to promote achievement of the course learning outcomes?”
In answer to the question, “what does the instructor do well,” several students commented favorably on the varied activities and approaches that we used. Student 1: “Can keep student interested for three hours. Good use of different teaching styles.” Student 2: “Keeps us interested. Varietizes (sic) class activities (not just lecture.)” Student 3: “Diversify the topics we learn in class and the methods we learnt them.” Student 4: “Keeping class interesting with different things.” Student 5: “Integrates many different ways/methods of teaching into his lectures.”
Several students also commented favorably on the use of electronic media in the class. Student 1: “Used many different media to get the point across.” Student 2: “Good mixture of media used.” Student 3: “Good explanations; lots of media.” Several students also commented favorably on getting quick responses to emailed questions, something more important for a class that only meets once each week.
I also applied these principles to a senior-level course during summer school 2000. I observed following, compared with prior classes. First, the level of enthusiasm visible during class and evidenced in the course evaluations is palpable. Only one of 20 students consistently refused to participate in discussions. Owing to group work, students got to know one another much better, to the point where they could anticipate objections others would make to their interpretations. This generated a much livelier environment of creative exchanges, often punctuated with humor.
Second, students quickly recognized that they could and should bring knowledge and experiences from out side the classroom into it. Students would refer to discussion or issues raised in a political science or sociology. They would raise points they heard in a news story and saw in a movie. Third, grades are consistently higher. The camaraderie among student groups helps. But so does my policy of "no catastrophic failure." Students can do badly on an assignment or two without having it decrease their grade substantially. Thus they can fail, learn, apply, and improve as they do similar types of written and oral presentations several times. Fourth, most students missed two or fewer classes, and always notified me in advance. They behaved as responsible members of our learning community.
Select items from the course evaluation: Key: 1-Strongly agree 2- Agree 3- Neutral/ Not Sure 4- Disagree 5- Strongly disagree
I am better at analyzing historical events as a result of this course.[10 Strongly agree, 4 agree]
Comments on my essays helped improve my writing. [8 Strongly Agree, 6 Agree]
I would recommend this course to other students. [10 Strongly Agree, 4 Agree]
Additional evidence gleaned from open-ended responses on evaluations: Most useful thing about the course: "Writing Skills," "Writing evaluation--learning to write a good essay." Eight of 14 students reported that they found the discussions the most enjoyable part of the course. My favorite response (from a school teacher nearly my age): "You changed my life." That's what I aspire to do.
While student response has been overwhelmingly positive, it is not universally supportive. Asked "what did you enjoy least about the course, one senior responded "writting to much" (sic). Clearly, the student needs the practice, whether sh/e knows it or not. Another student, obviously feeling put-upon by the frequent discussions, commented. "You should lecture more; we're paying you."
Conclusion: Whether you can integrate these technologies and activities into your classroom depends, of course, on your campus computing infrastructure. I now have access to a classroom with full computer and Internet access, an opaque overhead projector, and VCR. All materials project onto a 6x8 foot screen. Another classroom employs "Smart Board" technology. One can display any electronic image on a large touchscreen, and, using special pens, mark on the displayed map, chart, or Internet site. Thus whatever medium or electronic source I need is available. However, we have also purchased a laptop computer and a portable projector to bring computing power to any classroom.
What about those times when the technology doesn't work? Again, don't pretend that you have to be the omniscient, omnipotent Borg. Ask for help. You'll often find a student who can solve a technical problem for you. This is a win-win situation. Use it! As bell hooks (sic) reminds us, "We all bring to the classroom experiential knowledge." It also reinforces a solid pedagogical practice, "to redirect their [student] attention away from my voice to one another's voices."
What would I like to add? Apropos of recent calls by Robert E. Wright and Ronald Smith, I would like to add more sophisticated, interactive electronic materials. I would love to work with computer scientists to create a role-playing simulation. I would like students to take the role of a president of a Central American nation, a Mayan peasant woman, a West Indian migrant worker, a wealthy landowner, a military officer, etc. Then they could see and "feel" the forces pushing and pulling a variety of actors in Latin America. I have not yet used journal-writing exercises, so I may try those. I would also like to move my courses toward Problem-Based Learning (PBL), which fits nicely with how historians do their work.
In sum, technology is not a magic elixir that resolves all preexisting teaching problems. Nor is it something that one simply adds to a course. It is not an add-on; it is an essential ingredient. Technology should be embedded into the fabric, the philosophy, and the objectives of a course. By thinking about technological options as one designs or revises a course, an instructor insures that the whole package makes sense-- historically and pedagogically. We owe our students and ourselves nothing less.
Richard W. Slatta is professor of history at North Carolina State University, where he has taught since 1980. He served on the HCR board of editors from the journal's founding until its demise. In May 2000, he won his college's highest teaching honor, the Lonnie and Carol Poole Award for Excellence in Teaching.
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