Tools for Teaching Barbara Gross Davis Tools for Teaching JOSSEY-BASS PUBLISHERS San Francisco Copyright © 1993 by jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, California 94104. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Jossey-Bass books are available to corporations, professional associations, and other organizations.
For details and discount information, contact the special sales department at Jossey-Bass Inc. Jossey-Bass Web address: http://www.com Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Davis, Barbara Gross. Tools for teaching / Barbara Gross Davis. — (The Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series) Includes bibliographical references (p.
College teaching—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc. Classroom management—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc. Curriculum planning— United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.1'25— dc20 93-19500 FIRST EDITION PB Printing 10 9 8 7 A Publication in THE JOSSEY-BASS HIGHER AND ADULT EDUCATION SERIES Contents Preface xiii The Author xxv /. Getting Under Way 1 Preparing or Revising a Course 2 The Course Syllabus 24 3 The First Day of Class 20 II.
Responding to a Diverse Student Body 4 Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities 31 5 Diversity and Complexity in the Classroom: Considerations of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender 39 6 Reentry Students 52 Teaching Academically Diverse Students 55 III. Discussion Strategies Leading a Discussion 63 9 Encouraging Student Participation in Discussion 75 10 Asking Questions 82 11 Fielding Students' Questions 91 IV. Lecture Strategies 12 Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course 99 13 Delivering a Lecture 111 14 Explaining Clearly 120 15 Personalizing the Large Lecture Class 125 16 Supplements and Alternatives to Lecturing: Encouraging Student Participation 131 17 Maintaining Instructional Quality with Limited Resources 140 ix Contents V. Collaborative and Experiential Strategies 18 Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams 147 19 Role Playing and Case Studies 159 20 Fieldwork 166 VI.
Enhancing Students' Learning and Motivation 21 Helping Students Learn 177 22 Learning Styles and Preferences 185 23 Motivating Students 193 VII. Writing Skills and Homework Assignments 24 Helping Students Write Better in All Courses 205 25 Designing Effective Writing Assignments 213 26 Evaluating Students' Written Work 222 27 Homework: Problem Sets 230 VIII. Testing and Grading 28 Quizzes, Tests, and Exams 239 29 Allaying Students' Anxieties About Tests 252 30 Multiple-Choice and Matching Tests 262 31 Short-Answer and Essay Tests 272 32 Grading Practices 282 33 Calculating and Assigning Grades 288 34 Preventing Academic Dishonesty 299 IX. Instructional Media and Technology 35 Chalkboards 315 36 Hipcharts 3/9 37 Transparencies and Overhead Projectors 321 38 Slides 326 39 Films and Videotapes 331 40 Computers and Multimedia 334 X.
Evaluation to Improve Teaching 41 East Feedback 345 42 Watching Yourself on Videotape 355 43 Self-Evaluation and the Teaching Dossier 362 X Contents XL Teaching Outside the Classroom 44 Holding Office Hours 369 45 Academic Advising and Mentoring Undergraduates 374 46 Guiding, Training, and Supervising Graduate Student Instructors 384 XII. Finishing Up ________________________________________________ 47 The Last Days of Class 393 48 Student Rating Forms 397 49 Writing Letters of Recommendation 407 Index 413 xi Preface In the continuing debate over how to improve the quality of undergraduate education, two questions are of central importance: What should be taught? and How can that curriculum best be taught? Tools for Teaching addresses the latter question by providing a compendium of teaching strategies that focus on the major aspects of college and university teaching—from plan- ning a course through assigning final grades. The aim of the book is to encourage faculty to become more aware of how they teach and how they might teach more effectively, and to provide them with the tools for doing so. New faculty members who are teaching for the first time will find reassuring suggestions on how to design and offer a new course, how to write and grade an exam, and how to attend to the range of responsibilities involved in teaching and managing a large lecture course.
Experienced faculty members who are faced with thorny teaching problems or are concerned about burning out or getting stale will find descriptions of various ways to revitalize their courses. Graduate student instructors and teaching assistants can also benefit from the ideas described in Tools. Certain assumptions about you, the reader, have guided the design and organization of this book: • You care about teaching and your students, and you want to improve your abilities to help your students develop their intellectual and cog- nitive skills. • You want to learn about specific instructional strategies that other faculty members have used successfully and that educational re- searchers have found to be effective.
• You can figure things out for yourself. Once you are presented with the gist of a strategy, you can adapt it to your particular circumstances and needs—or reject it as inappropriate for you. • You are busy and have little time to read through the burgeoning literature on teaching and learning. You want to be able to quickly xiii Preface locate information and ideas for improving your teaching and your students' learning.
(For those of you who wish to do further reading, each tool includes a reference list.) Many of the ideas described in Tools for Teaching can be readily imple- mented; others require some planning or modifications in course design. Not all the suggestions are of equal importance, and no one instructor could possibly use even half of them—nor would any instructor want to. Rather, each entry was chosen to stimulate your thinking about teaching. Tools is truly a toolbox from which to select and adapt those ideas that match your teaching style and the needs of your students.
Indeed, one of the premises of the book is that there are no pat answers, quick fixes, or sure-fire recipes for excellent teaching, only endless ways to improve your teaching skills. Origin of Tools for Teaching Every day, faculty in classrooms across the country acquire useful knowledge about teaching. This book is an attempt to catalogue those classroom-tested ideas and strategies in an easy-to-read format that lends itself to quick reference and skimming. In preparing Tools for Teaching, I reviewed hun- dreds of techniques, strategies, and ideas, and I selected those that seemed most sensible and worthwhile for encouraging students' learning and intel- lectual development in a wide range of disciplines.
The ideas in Tools come primarily from five sources: (1) my conversations with and classroom observations of faculty at the University of California, Berkeley (some of their ideas are catalogued in The ABCs of Teaching Excellence, 1983; the publication is now out of print, but the material is available through the computer network—INFOCAL—on the Berkeley campus); (2) articles and publications by faculty at this and other colleges and universities; (3) the research literature in higher education on teaching, learning, and theories of instruction; (4) the work of experienced faculty development consultants who publish newsletters, handouts, guidebooks, and other fugitive documents about good teaching; and (5) newspaper and magazine articles that describe what faculty are doing to improve teaching and undergraduate education. I have made every effort to attribute each entry to a published source or to cite a reference that provides greater detail, although the source cited is not necessarily the originator of the technique. In some cases, though, the ideas form part of the general lore and common practices of faculty or reached me Preface without attribution or evolved from my own experiences in teaching and working with faculty. Though Took derives from a substantial body of research and theory, I have deliberately kept discussions of research findings to a minimum to avoid disrupting the user's smooth reading of the text.
The best teaching respects the purpose for using a particular technique. Therefore, I encourage those with the time and inclination to use the bibliographies at the end of each tool to delve more deeply into the background of a given area. I also encourage all readers not to grab techniques and insert them thoughtlessly into a course but to think about their function and impact—and then, like all good teachers, to evaluate their effectiveness. Description and Organization of Tools for Teaching Tools is a practical source book designed to be used as a reference book; it is not meant to be read cover to cover in two or three sittings.
Although all the principles and suggestions derive from classroom experience and educational research and theory, the various tools focus on what instructors can do rather than on the theoretical underpinnings for the suggestions. Those seeking discussions of theory and philosophy, essays on good teaching, personal reminiscences about classroom experiences, or case studies of typical teaching situations will want to look elsewhere. And indeed, there are useful resources on each of these subjects. Essays on good teaching have been compiled, for example, by Gullette (1983).
Personal descriptions of teaching experiences can be found in publications such as The Teaching Professor and College Teaching or in discipline-specific periodicals related to college teach- ing, such as Teaching of Psychology and Journal of College Science Teaching. (Cashin and Clegg, 1993, have compiled a list of periodicals related to college teaching.) Christensen and Hansen (1987) have prepared a textbook of cases on such topics as establishing a learning contract with students, gaining students' respect, and leading a discussion. Theories, models, and alternative outlooks on teaching have been proposed by Axelrod (1973) and Jackson (1986), among others. Tools for Teaching is unlike these other publications.
The book consists of forty-nine tools organized into twelve sections that represent, in roughly chronological sequence, the key teaching responsibilities and activities of college instructors. The topics range from specific tasks (writing a course syllabus) to broad social issues (dealing with diversity on campus). xv Preface Each tool includes a brief introduction, a set of general strategies, and concise descriptions of practical ideas that faculty members can adapt and try out. The format lends itself to easy and efficient identification of major points and to quick reading or browsing.
Moreover, each tool can be read independently of the others, and the tools can be read in any order. As you will see, the groupings of tools within the sections are somewhat arbitrary. "Explaining Clearly," for example, is located in Section Four, "Lecture Strategies," but has obvious relevance to all types of classes. The table of contents, index, and cross-references within the tools should help you quickly locate the material you need.
The following overview of the twelve sections may also help you decide where to delve. Section One, "Getting Under Way," addresses planning issues: how to design a new course or revise an existing one, how to create a syllabus, and how to handle the first day of class. Section Two, "Responding to a Diverse Student Body," explores issues that arise in teaching students with disabilities, stu- dents from ethnic or cultural backgrounds different from your own, and older students returning to school after an extended absence. The final tool in this section looks at classes in which students have widely varying aca- demic skills and abilities.
The next three sections focus on instructional strategies for different class formats. Section Three, "Discussion Strategies," provides ideas on how to lead a productive discussion, frame challenging questions, and encourage student participation. Section Four, "Leaure Strategies," addresses all as- pects of the leaure method, particularly the large lecture class: how to prepare, how to deliver effective lectures, and how to create a positive classroom environment in a large impersonal auditorium. This section also describes supplements and alternatives to lecturing, to more actively engage students and overcome the passivity of one-way communication.
The theme of active involvement is continued in Section Five, "Collaborative and Expe- riential Strategies." Here you will read about the advantages of group work for classes of all sizes and ways you can help students learn by doing, through role playing, case studies, and field work.