Luke
Reinsma's
10
Things To Do or You Can Kiss Your Class Goodbye
1.
First impressions matter.
The
first two days of class -- even the first 15 minutes of
the quarter -- will make or break it. It's crucial that
you get students talking -- that you not just hand out a
syllabus and send students off to do their homework already
numbed to the prospect of another quarter of the teacher
talking at them.
2.
Learn your students' names.
Pass
out a seating chart and then spend an hour or so memorizing
your students' names. The photos that accompany your class
roster on Banner will help. Your attempt at learning your
students' names within the first two weeks of class will
be rewarding. No, not like on a course evaluation. Rewarding,
rather, as in two people leaning across a table engaged
in conversation.
3.
Your syllabus should be organized, substantial,
thesis-driven, and relevant.
That
is to say, it should provide students with a clear sense
of the shape of your course and with specific assignments
for each day (or week) of the quarter. It should require
students to spend a couple of hours outside of class for
each hour within. It should seek to move students from A
to B -- towards a new understanding, a re-evaluation, a
discovery. And last, it should be, implicitly and yet fundamentally,
for and about them. Not that your course need be hip or
trendy. But one of the best compliments students might pay
you, is to say that they never knew that your course had
anything to do with their lives. It should.
4.
Stick to your syllabus.
All
of us know what it's like to get swatted by last-minute
committee meetings or changes of plans. Students, too, need
security. They need the comfort of knowing what's coming
around the corner---deadlines for assignments, papers, and
exams. So stick to your deadlines! When you reschedule even
one due date or exam day, it jostles everything else: for
the rest of the quarter, students will not be confident
that what the syllabus says will happen, will happen.
5.
Will you take attendance?
If
we quit taking attendance and quit harassing students with
pop quizzes, would students desert our classes in droves?
If so--if attendance sheets and pop quizzes are all that
keep our students chained to the oars of the galley--that
is, of course, the students' problem, but it's also ours.
Of course, there are legitimate reasons for keeping tabs
on our students: there is much to be said for 'encouraging'
our students to learn. But there's even more to be said
for making each of our class periods so valuable a learning
experience that students kick themselves for having missed
the class, rather than for having attended. Besides, what
a pleasure it is (sort of) to teach a class of students
who are not there by coercion but by choice.
6.
Students should be able to fail your class.
Not
just because they don't attend, but because your course
and exams are substantial. More specifically, your exams
should be sufficiently detailed, so that amorphous responses
to essay questions alone will not result in a passing grade.
When students slide through a course with what used to be
called a 'gentleman's C'---these days, a gentleperson's
B---the course feels like a waste of their time and money.
When that happens, you lose their respect. And when that
happens, they spend the quarter waiting for you to die.
7.
Do conferences.
It's
good to meet with each of your students at least once during
the quarter, often with the excuse of reviewing the first
draft of a paper. But the real purpose of such a conference
is to chat for ten minutes--where the students are from,
their major, hobbies, how school's going, and so on. Admittedly,
it's a lot of time. Forty students will require roughly
twenty hours of your time during the quarter--two hours
a week during a ten-week quarter. But it's an investment
that will pay off richly in trust and respect, both of which
are indispensable prerequisites to learning.
8.
Give students the option of rewriting their papers.
Doing
rewrites has three advantages. First, it invites students
to actually read not just your grade but your comments.
Second, it introduces them to the possibility of discovering
new ideas. And third, it gives students hope, which is what
gets all of us up in the morning. For the record, it works
best to limit students to a single rewrite (so that grades
don't get ratcheted up interminably), to require students
to submit both the first graded paper and the revision (so
you can compare the two), and to raise the paper grade by
no more than a grade (1/3 for editing, 2/3 for paragraph-level
revision, and 3/3 for a substantial rewrite). Lest this
seem too onerous a burden, you can skim these rewrites with
ruthless efficiency--5 minutes a paper.
9.
Give students essay topics for their exams
a week in advance.
At
the risk of caving into mediocrity, it's often useful to
distribute the essay questions for exams a week in advance,
and then invite students to get together in study groups
to prepare fot the essays. Of course, they'll think you're
a sap for removing the element of shock and awe that unanticipated
essays provide, but the real value of an exam comes in its
preparation. And if you can get students thinking and talking
collaboratively about these essay topics a week--instead
of an hour--in advance of the exam, then there's something
less like cramming and more like learning going on.
10.
Your exams should assemble the pieces of your
course.
If
the days of our courses are like pieces of a puzzle, which
we gradually collect over a quarter, it's not enough to
test students on the names of thirty pieces of a puzzle
on their final exam. Rather, a good exam will assemble these
puzzle pieces into a frame in order to provide students
with the "big picture." In bureaucratese, our
exams need to test for the stated objectives of the course.
Put simply, if your course is intended to help students
speak intelligently about, say, a work of modern art, your
final exam question should ask them to discuss a work of
modern art. In fact, your entire course should be aimed
at the bull's eye of these final essay questions.
Last,
ignore any of the items above. Each of
us teaches at our best from out of who we are. For any of
the items above, substitute that which helps you to teach
and students to learn most effectively.
-
Luke Reinsma
