Higher EducationVOL. 29, NO. 1 JANUARY 2012

Become a Better Teacher+Your Assignment for 2012: Fight for Your Rights!

Why You Should Care about the Occupy Movement

How Rich Corporations = Poor Public Colleges

Faculty Strikes for Fairness

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Getting Better as Teachers

How can we get better in our teaching?” It is a question that perpetu-ally challenges us. One powerful option is to learn from the out-standing teachers around us: What do they do that makes them soeffective? Can we learn from them to become better teachers?

Improving Our Teaching: Learning from the Best

In 2004, Ken Bain published the influential book, ,which offered an in-depth study of more than 60 outstanding teachers from quite varied in-stitutions. His book contains numerous wonderful lessons, but the central theme was thatthese teachers created “natural critical learning environments.” They challenged studentswith authentic problems and questions and then supported their efforts to grapple with re-lated ideas, rethink their assumptions, and re-examine their mental models of reality.

In the belief that it is possible to look at exceptionally good teachers and learn more thanone valuable lesson, I offer this additional analysis.

The four circled items represent the fundamental tasks of teaching. The way we do thosetasks is influenced by the our own views of knowledge, learning, teaching, ourselves asteachers, and our students as learners. In my essay, I identify some lessons from Bain’sbook on three of these factors: perspectives, course design, and interactions with students.

inREFLECTIONS ON HELPING STUDENTS LEARN

BY:

L. DEE FINK

University of

Oklahoma, Retired

Thriving in Academe is a joint project of NEA and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education(www.podnetwork.org). For more information, contact the editor, Douglas Robertson (drobert@fiu.edu) at

Florida International University or Mary Ellen Flannery (mflannery@nea.org) at NEA.

Knowledge of InteractionsSubject Matter with Students

Perspectives

Course Design Course Management

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“What the Best

College Teachers Do”:

An Additional Analysis

Ken Bain’s description of the best collegeteachers (2004) is a rich resource of infor-mation from which we can all learn. As along-time faculty developer with my ownperspective on college teaching, I offer thisadditional analysis of what accounts for theunusual impact of these teachers on thelearning of their students. This analysis fo-cuses on the perspectives they brought totheir work, their course design decisions,and the special way they interacted withtheir students.

ATTITUDES AND PERSPECTIVES

Apart from their actions in relation to spe-cific courses, these teachers had a specialset of attitudes or perspectives about teach-ing and learning that was foundational to

the way they taught.

Notonly did these teachers do the usual workof keeping abreast of changes in their disci-pline, they spent substantial amounts oftime continuously learning new ideas aboutteaching and the nature of human learning.

Intheir own thinking and in their communica-tion with others, they never engaged in the all-too-common practice of blaming

I TALES FROM REAL LIFE > LEARNING ABOUT TEACHING AND LEARNING

THEIR CONVERSATIONS REVEALED A MINDSET

THAT TRUSTED STUDENTSTO BE GOOD STUDENTS.

Meet L. Dee Fink

Like most of uswho teach inhigher educa-

tion, Kristin Scott, anassistant professor ofMarketing, had nopreparation for teach-ing. At her first univer-sity, she was givensome old syllabi a weekbefore classes and told:“Just try to stay oneweek ahead of the stu-dents.” Result? “I had

no understanding ofwhat to do or of howstudents learn. Idreaded going to class.I thought the studentshated me.”

Fortunately her seconduniversity, MinnesotaState—Mankato, had aTeaching CertificateProgram to help juniorfaculty learn aboutteaching. Result? “It

was a complete para-digm shift for me. Ilearned some reallyfundamental concepts,like ‘active learning andmetacognition; I learnedhow to engage students,and the importance ofidentifying what I wantstudents to learn.”

An increasing propor-tion of college teachersare discovering there

are some “break-through” ideas aboutteaching and learning“out there.” Fink main-tains an annotated bib-liography of books withmajor new ideas on col-lege teaching publishedin the last 20 years; it isavailable online at:www.finkconsulting.info/majornewideas.doc

As Professor Scott said,

“Participating in thisTeaching CertificateProgram made my jobmore enjoyable. I stillhave a lot to learn, butmy courses alreadyhave a lot more focusto them; my studentsare more engaged witheach other and withme. That makes mycourses much more ex-citing—both for my stu-dents and for me.”

L. Dee Fink servedas founding directorof the InstructionalDevelopment Program at the University of Okla-homa from 1979

until his retirement in 2005. In2004-2005, he served as presidentof the POD Network in Higher Edu-cation, the primary professional association for facultydevelopers in the US. He currentlyworks as a national and internationalconsultant in higher education,helping universities identify ways toimprove their educational program.His professional website is:www.finkconsulting.info.

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students. They never made comments like“Today’s students just don’t [fill in your favorite problem] like they did in my daysas a student,” or “You just have to force students today to work hard.” Rather, theirconversations revealed a mindset thattrusted students to be good students.

They did not just glance at their end-of-course evaluations and ask: “How’d I dothis time?” They examined the evaluationsclosely to see what students liked and disliked, then they used this information toget even better in their teaching. When stu-dents were not learning well, they exam-ined the course, before automaticallyblaming the students.

They did not view their teachingas their private domain—and no one else’sbusiness. Rather, they saw their own teach-ing as an integral part of what their institution or their discipline was trying todo. That is, they saw themselves as part ofa collective effort to provide students witha high-quality educational experience. Thismeant they tried to contribute in some wayto the goals of that larger effort.

DECISIONS ABOUT COURSE DESIGN

Before the course even began, these teach-ers undertook a number of specific actionsand decisions, which I would describe ascourse design decisions.

Many of them identified big questions or

big stories that gave meaning to the wholecourse. One calculus teacher drew an irreg-ular shape and then asked students: “Howwould you calculate the area under thatcurve?” A sociology professor posed thequestion: “How does society influence indi-vidual human behavior, and is that influence

greater than the personal and biologicalforces within each person?”

They did not dismiss class early, and tellstudents to “go buy your textbooks.” Theyused the first day to get the course startedin a powerful way. Many used this to get toknow their students better, both individu-ally and collectively. Others used it to posetheir big question and start the process ofengaging students.

Theseteachers clearly had moved into learning-centered teaching. They recognized theneed to build their course around a set ofhigh-quality learning goals, rather than justmarch their students through a set of topicsabout the subject. Many of these goals

focused on “thinking” as well as “knowing.”But many also wanted learning that, interms of Fink’s

(2003), went well beyond the cat-egories of cognitive learning. One medical-school professor wanted her students tolearn: how to handle their own emotions,how to treat a person in a hospital bed as ahuman being, and how to care both forhealing and for helping people and theirfamilies.

Theseteachers had moved well beyond primaryreliance on the traditional staples of lec-tures, homework, and whole-class discus-sions. They had students engaging inauthentic tasks, small group work, findingsources of information, answering thosebig questions themselves, and reflecting ontheir own learning.

Bypaying attention to several characteristicsof their students over the years and cur-rently, they were able to make adjustmentsin their courses to deal appropriately with:students’ prior knowledge of the subject,their dominant learning patterns, their ex-pectations of the course, etc.

Theirassessment activities were used to do morethan grade students; they were used to en-hance learning. They accomplished this by(a) periodically having students assess their own learning, (b) providing fre-quent feedback on student work, and (c)using well-developed rubrics to evaluate

H ere are threepieces of adviceto get anyone on

a growth curve in terms oftheir competencies and ca-pabilities for helping otherpeople learn.

First, spend time learningabout teaching. This mightmean participating in on-campus or national work-shops, reading books,gathering feedback from

students, and if your univer-sity has a faculty develop-ment program, using theirconsultation services.

How much time should onespend? Most sizeable organ-izations spend 5% of a per-son’s time on professionaldevelopment. For facultymembers, that would meanspending 8 hours a monthor 8 days a year.

Second, apply what you

learn.. It is not enough tolearn new ideas; you have touse them and make somekind of change in yourteaching.

Third, assess your teachingcarefully. When you trysomething new [whichshould be every time youteach], askyour students ifthey learned somethingvaluable. Which activitieshelped them learn well and

which did not?

If you can regularly learnand apply new ideas to yourteaching, and also assessthe impact of these changes,you will see yourself gettingbetter and better as ateacher — every year, everyyear!

THESE TEACHERS HADMOVED WELL BEYOND

PRIMARY RELIANCE ON THETRADITIONAL STAPLES OFLECTURES, HOMEWORK,

AND WHOLE-CLASS DISCUSSIONS.

I BEST PRACTICES > STRATEGIES FOR GETTING BETTER AS A TEACHER

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complex projects.

One level of integration wasachieved by making sure their learningand assessment activities fit their learninggoals. In addition, they frequently found away to connect out-of-class learning within-class learning. This way, the course of-fered a sequence of activities that built oneach other, frequently leading to a culmi-nating activity or project.

THEIR INTERACTIONS WITH STUDENTS

Once the course was underway, theseteachers communicated and interactedwith students in a way that motivated andempowered students to effective learning.How did they do this?

Theydidn’t just “say” they cared; they didcare—about many things. They were con-cerned about students as human beings;they deeply wanted students to learn; thewhole teaching-learning process excitedthem; and they truly believed their subjectwas the most important and exciting inthe world. These passions were made visi-ble to students, not hidden or kept secret.

Bain mentioned three specific actions byteachers that motivated students to workhard on learning: (a) they gave praise in aspecial way, e.g., using “task” praise ratherthan “person” praise, (b) they listenedcarefully to students, and (c) they figuredout what motivated different students,and then responded in special ways toeach student.

Part of this involved using a senseof drama and rhythm in their dialogue.They also used the language of “promises”[“This is what you will be able to do as aresult of this course…”] rather than “de-mands” [“This is what you must do in thiscourse…”]. In addition, they:

• Invited students into a community oflearners about the subject at hand, bothpast and present.

• Repeatedly expressed their belief thateach and every student in the course re-ally could learn this material.

• Celebrated the achievements of students.

• Used the “warm” language of good storytelling.

They were sensi-tive to how they handled the power-trustissue inherent in any hierarchical relation-ship. They did not use the classroom todemonstrate their power or brilliance, butinstead to invest in students, displaying atrust that students were ready to learn.When possible, they gave students powerto make decisions about their own learn-ing. And finally, they were fair, i.e., theyequally applied the same policies for all.

REFERENCES AND RESOURCESHere are seven books with ideas that canhelp anyone make their teaching more ef-fective.

Ambrose, S., et al. 2010. How Learning Works:7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bain, K. 2004. What the Best College TeachersDo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Barkley, E. 2010. Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fink, L.D. 2003. Creating Significant LearningExperiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Related website: www.designlearning.org

Michaelsen, L., Knight, A., & Fink, L.D. 2004.Team-Based Learning: A Transformative Use ofSmall Groups. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Related website: www.teambasedlearning.org

Weimer, M. 2002. Learner-Centered Teaching:Five Key Changes to Practice. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Wiggins, G. 1998. Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

I ISSUES TO CONSIDER

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GETTING BETTERAS TEACHERS:SOME A PRIORIQUESTIONS

Before we even make theeffort to get better asteachers, there are somequestions that we needto ask and answer. Hereare three questions thatmany teachers have.

IF I WORK REALLYHARD, CAN I BECOMEONE OF THE BESTTEACHERS AT MY UNIVERSITY? Maybe yes, maybe no.But that is not the rightquestion to ask. The rightquestion is: “Can I getmyself on a growth curveand stay there? That is,can I continue to get better, every year, everyyear?” That will requirespending time bothlearning new ideas fromwherever you can, andthen finding a way to usethese ideas in your ownteaching. We can’t all be“the best” but we can allget better — and we oweit to our institution, our-selves and our students

to work hard at achievingthat goal.

CAN I REALLY MAKEBIG CHANGES IN MYEFFECTIVENESS AS ATEACHER? Aren’t we all born withour particular level of talent as a teacher? Theanswer to this question is quite clear. Everydaythere are people learninghow to make major improvements in their effectiveness as teachers.I worked as a faculty de-veloper for more than 25years at a university withapproximately 1,000teachers. Over and over, Isaw ordinary teacherswith typical problemstake an idea from aworkshop, from a con-sulting session or a book,and apply that idea intheir courses with amaz-ing results. The teachersfelt much better abouttheir teaching and so didtheir students.

IS THERE A SINGLE,BEST WAY TO TEACH? Is this not “one size fitsall” thinking? It is correct,that there is not a singlebest way to teach. But

there are some universalprinciples that we can allapply in unique and spe-cific ways. The teachersdescribed in Bain’s bookwere clearly quite variedin their specific practices.But what Bain did in hisbook and what I am try-ing to do here, is identifysome common principlesand patterns we seewithin that variation.An analogy to this iswhat happens with air-planes. Some planes aremade in Europe, some inthe U.S. Some are built tobe agile fighter planes;some are designed tocarry cargo or passengers.Some are big, some aresmall. But no matter whatthe size and purpose,when that plane takes offand lands, there are someuniversal laws of aerody-namics that must be usedin the design and opera-tion of that plane. Thesame is true of teaching.

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