Conversations About University Teaching
Last night I got into a Twitter conversation with “Steve”. He is not one of my regular Twitter correspondents, but I was asked a series of questions about University teaching and students which I tried to answer to the best of my ability. They were good, perceptive questions, some of which were difficult to answer in the 140 character Twitter limit. This article is an attempt to amplify my responses.
Firstly, let’s start off by saying I have the utmost admiration for today’s students. They are paying a lot of tuition money for their education, and are hoping that they will be able to develop worthwhile careers after they graduate. With the modern trend towards precarious work, and the increasing level of automation of many traditional jobs, this is real leap of faith. I have no patience for the “Millennials are too lazy, entitled and self-obsessed” stories which are all too popular in the media. I don’t believe it for a second.
Secondly, there are more students entering higher education than there used to be. When I went to university, it was an elite 5–10% of society. I strongly believe in more opportunity, and more people going on in their education. I might add a little caveat that I think some of the people now in higher education would be better off in advanced vocational training, rather than at university. But that’s an entire other policy debate.
So, once our students get to university, they frequently have a part time job, and sometimes that part-time job might even be the equivalent of full-time employment. Tuition and living expenses are a considerable burden, and many student have to juggle many tasks in order to study. Again, this is rather different from my own experience, where we were, in effect, “professional” students and expected to work extremely long hours at our studies, with no allowances for outside employment. I am very aware that whatever work I assign has to be done whenever it can be managed within a schedule, and that work schedules and managers are sometimes not sympathetic to the needs of the student worker. I try to build flexibility into my syllabus to allow for this. I also let students have extra time on assignments, if they ask me.
Then we have the issues of student ability and preparedness from high school. Inevitably, when widening the proportion of students attending university, the ability range in class also varies more. Universities have been slow to adjust for this fact. In addition, the preparation of students in high school is, sadly, rather patchy. Some students arrive extremely well prepared, others poorly prepared. This makes teaching the introductory classes which I specialise in, rather challenging. My response to this has been more interactive classes, rather than traditional lectures, and multiple opportunities for low-stakes testing out of class, using online assignments and problems sets with solutions. It’s important not to bore the well-prepared students, but also to engage the less well-prepared individuals in the class. We then add in generous opportunities for students to interact with me, or my teaching assistants.
In addition, there are other academic support functions available from different parts of the institution, such as peer-support networks and even individual mentoring for students who are struggling. I encourage all of these. In one of my introductory classes, I make attendance at a series of seminars on good teaching and learning practices mandatory, and for credit on the final grade. Getting the foundation of good learning in the first few weeks of the first term of the first year is vital. And we still get students failing to attend the “Managing Procrastination” seminar until the last minute, or even missing the deadline!
Moving from high school to higher education is a big leap, and some need more support than others. The methods of studying and learning which were successful strategies in high school may need considerable modification, or even replacement, at university level. Memorisation of facts for an exam is not sufficient. Now one has to analyse, and synthesise that knowledge, apply it to new areas, solve new problems, boldly go where no-one has gone before. And that is not always easy to explain, and even more difficult to carry out. This is particularly true in very large first year classes. This term I have two classes with 300 and 250 students in them respectively. The personal attention from the teacher, which could reasonably be expected in a high school class, just isn’t possible on that industrial scale of teaching. I spend at least an hour a day, every day answering email on course related matters. But it is extremely difficult to monitor individual progress, unless I am alerted by the individual themselves. I’ve put a special emphasis on telling my students this in the current year. It seems to be working, so far, judging from the traffic in my office hours, which is markedly higher than last year.
Studies show that students who get through the first year have an excellent chance of completing their degree studies, and so my overall objectives for my teaching is to push the students intellectually, but support them so they can succeed. I usually sum up my teaching philosophy as “Every student should realise their own potential”. Hopefully, my students will understand, rise to the challenge that I set, and achieve more than they thought that they were capable of. If they do, then I will have succeeded.
