Good Teaching!

[LarryLatham]

Hello to all,

I just ran into this on the web while following a lead provided by Norm Ryder of Canberra, Australia. Thanks Norm!

I'm afraid I haven't secured separate permission from Professor Leblanc to reproduce his ideas here, but since I found them on the web, I hope he won't be upset that we may find his advice compelling here where so many of us are striving to be better teachers.

GOOD TEACHING: THE TOP TEN REQUIREMENTS

By Richard Leblanc, York University, Ontario
This article appeared in The Teaching Professor after Professor Leblanc won a Seymous Schulich Award for Teaching Excellence including a $10,000 cash award. Reprinted here with permission of Professor Leblanc, October 8, 1998.


One. Good teaching is as much about passion as it is about reason. It's about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable. It's about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that passion to everyone, most importantly to your students.

Two. Good teaching is about substance and treating students as consumers of knowledge. It's about doing your best to keep on top of your field, reading sources, inside and outside of your areas of expertise, and being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not confined to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between theory and practice. It's about leaving the ivory tower and immersing oneself in the field, talking to, consulting with, and assisting practitioners, and liaisoning with their communities.

Three. Good teaching is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering that each student and class is different. It's about eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the quiet students. It's about pushing students to excel; at the same time, it's about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all times.

Four. Good teaching is about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing circumstances. It's about getting only 10 percent of what you wanted to do in a class done and still feeling good. It's about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a pushover on the other.

Five. Good teaching is also about style. Should good teaching be entertaining? You bet! Does this mean that it lacks in substance? Not a chance! Effective teaching is not about being locked with both hands glued to a podium or having your eyes fixated on a slide projector while you drone on. Good teachers work the room and every student in it. They realize that they are the conductors and the class is the orchestra. All students play different instruments and at varying proficiencies.

Six. This is very important -- good teaching is about humor. It's about being self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It's often about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.

Seven. Good teaching is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents. It's about devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It's also about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning courses, and preparing materials to still further enhance instruction.

Eight. Good teaching is supported by strong and visionary leadership, and very tangible institutional support -- resources, personnel, and funds. Good teaching is continually reinforced by an overarching vision that transcends the entire organization -- from full professors to part-time instructors -- and is reflected in what is said, but more importantly by what is done.

Nine. Good teaching is about mentoring between senior and junior faculty, teamwork, and being recognized and promoted by one's peers. Effective teaching should also be rewarded, and poor teaching needs to be remediated through training and development programs.

Ten. At the end of the day, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards ... like locking eyes with a student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. Good teachers practice their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn't imagine doing anything else.

These ideas sure sound sound to me. What is more, while they appear to be very sensible, they don't seem familiar with respect to anything I learned from any education course I have ever taken. There is no "bag of teaching tricks" here. I don't see anyplace where he advocates lesson plans or class activities. Such ideas may be helpful in the classroom from time to time, but they are not the stuff of good teaching!

Larry Latham

[Roger]

Larry,
thanks a lot for this piece! It is not entirely new in all of its aspects, but it certainly is written in a forceful and convincing way!
A teacher is a GUIDE rather than the SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE. A guide must convince his followers to do things and tricks they are not always prepared to do on their own! He or she has to overcome culturally-induced barriers - especially in foreign lands where teaching is done differently!
But I would say nothing PRof. Leblanc says should be omitted! I certainly can't put it any more eloquently!

[LarryLatham]

Indeed, Roger,

That's why I simply copied Prof. Leblanc's work.

So, what with all the challanges you run up against in China, how do you do it? What are you doing in your classroom that promotes "good teaching" in the sense Mr. Leblanc has described?

Larry Latham

[Diana]

Larry, this is great. Thanks a lot. I printed your Top Ten Requirements. These are what I've always believed to be the characteristic of good teaching, and I'm glad that someone was able to list it all down in such a neat way.

Best regards,
Diana

[Ann]

That is a great article. I enjoyed going through those points and it was good to be reminded why one is in this field of teaching in the first place.
On a related note (somewhat): I am not a crowd pleaser, but I think I do like to be generally liked by my students. So when evaluation time comes up, I look forward to reading the feedback. Of course, I don't expect it to be always positive, but I got a lot of "non-related topics" this time, and I wondered if this could be a cultural perception as well. And perhaps, the fault does lie with me--I probably shouldn't reveal too much personal information with my students. I think, in some cultures, it creates a lack of respect.
Hmmm....I don't know....

[Norm Ryder]

Ann

As long as they perceive your constant respect for them, maybe a little temporary lapse in respect for you is actually introducing your students
to some different cultural norms -- for some, it may help them realise that there are other ways or relating to people than their own. For others it will no doubt just confirm their stereotyping.

I guess like everything else, you have to judge how far you can go without raising too many eyebrows too far.

And, Larry, I too am printing the Leblanc piece to keep by me here on the desk. It's coming from a different direction than the"30 things we know about adult learning" -- but I guess it was the Hawaii connection that got you surfing, and landed you on this rather more exciting wave. "The 30 things" is the standard stuff they give out at adult education courses at university. We had to keep them in mid in training adults at work; but I find them even more relevant in working with older people, as many of my students are.

Norm

[Roger]

The "30 points", what exactly are they? Would you care to list them for someone from outside the USA?

Thanks
Roger