What are makes an effective teacher?

I’m still thinking about participation ... even more convinced of the point in the previous blog ... we need to be asking questions that do a better job of engaging students’ interests. I’ve also been thinking about how I don’t often prepare questions. I tend to ask when something comes to mind, as the session is unfolding. When I prepare, I work on the content. I review the material, think about how to structure the content, and try to generate good examples, but I don’t prepare questions, especially questions that aim to tap whatever interests learners might have in the topic. I need to start working on questions like that.

“What can a teacher do ... to encourage students to take a deep approach to learning? Hanging in the front office of the Research Academy for University Learning at Montclair is an old poster from the 1930s. It’s one of those Depression era placards encouraging schoolchildren to develop good habits. A little boy is tugging at a large yellow question mark, hooking a book labeled ‘knowledge.’ The caption reads: ‘Ask Questions. Sometimes the only way you can capture Mr. Knowledge is with a question mark.’ A bit stilted and old fashioned, the poster nevertheless captures something we’ve known for a long time. People are most likely to learn deeply when they are trying to answer their own questions or solve their own problems.

As a history major I usually found most of my history courses pretty interesting. Certainly some were more interesting than others but I think that had more to do with the instructor than the content. Of course not every student who takes a history class course plans to major in it, which is why I love it when I hear about a history professor (or any educator for that matter) doing innovative things to engage students in one of those “core courses” many students often dread.

I happened on the idea of giving voucher points accidentally, but over the years they've proven quite valuable in promoting active student involvement. It started when I was still teaching math in high school, and a student came up with a particularly clever method of solving a mathematics problem. As a reward, I wrote him an IOU good for one point on any of my tests. A few months later it happened again, and then later on I gave out a third voucher point. That semester, I received very positive comments about the practice on my student evaluations. Students requested that I “do voucher points more often.”

“Let’s begin today where we stopped last class.”

Some students tell us they hate groups—as in really hate groups. Why do faculty love groups so much, they ask. I work hard, I’m smart, I can get good grades by myself, these students insist. Other students are a waste. I end up doing all the work and they get the good grade I earned for the group. Why do you, Professor Byrnes, make me work in a group. I hate groups!

Did you know that college librarians can be a partner throughout the semester to not only plan and update research assignments but also to help you assess them upon completion?

Frank Heppner, a biology professor and author of Teaching the Large College Class: A Guidebook for Instructors with Multitudes, has been teaching large classes (and he considers 300 students a “small” class) for 38 years. He stopped counting the number of students taught once it reached 20,000.