I just finished my first semester teaching at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC). I taught a Marriage and Family Relations evening course. My students were great. Most of them were right out of high school and this was their first experience with college. As faculty have been entering grades, there has been a lot of discussion on the faculty listserv about entering failing grades which has prompted even more discussion about students, their motivations, and teaching in general. Some discussion has also ensued over students taking responsibility for their own learning, etc.
I find the whole thing very interesting and quite enlightening, especially how frustrated faculty have become on the subject. I think students have the responsibility to learn but teachers have the responsibility to provide an environment for learning. In light of this discussion, I thought I would share one of my favorite quotes on teaching:
"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." ~William Arthur Wood
2 comments:
I think you need to get our family together and do some marriage counseling with all of us. Or start a marriage/family tips newsletter and email us every week. And then we could submit anonymous questions and you could answer them. haha! I love that we have a Dr. Green in the family!! Love ya!
You know I was thinking about this today and I thought I should post a thought. I agree that this is a both/and issue. I think there is a real fear of "hand-holding" among faculty which I think is sometimes a bit exaggerated. For 2 reasons. One is that most students (and I'd say people, in general) don't make themselves learn in a vacuum. Students feel inspired or confident and that allows them to take on the next challenging thought or idea. Too much confusion creates too much anxiety and the simplest way to stop feeling anxious that you won't be able to understand something is to withdraw, stop thinking that you are responsible, blame others when you don't understand, etc. So, I think that good teachers create a learning environment that not only names the anxiety that students might be feeling, but also uses teaching techniques that coach student in how to manage their own pedagogical anxiety.
My second thought is the cultural piece of learning. Different cultures admire and scorn different approaches to learning. Some cultures value reading a book and discussing its contents and information. Other cultures don't value book learning as much. These cultures might value oral discovering and experiential sharing, so anything out of a book is viewed with suspicion since it's hard to imagine that books can be anywhere near as practical and relevant as a real life experience shared through oral interpretation. So, how do we coach students from this kind of background who are forced into a book-learning (linear, heady) educational system? I imagine that this is a significant issue in many community colleges, eh?
Just something to chew on!
Gregg
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