Top Ten Graduate Teacher Mistakes: Number 8

This is a continuation of the top ten list I started a while ago. I'll get to number eight below, but first a quick review:

Top Ten Review So Far...

Number Nine was asking too many questions. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, sometimes asking too many questions (of your peers, of the course supervisor) hampers you when teaching. Of course, you need to ask questions. I get that. But, asking too many can give you too many options, which organizational theorist Karl Weick argues may hamper your decision-making and inhibit your ability to adapt on the fly.

Number Ten, seemingly contrary to number nine, was not having a lesson plan--thinking that you're going to go in there and wing it is a recipe for disaster. The obvious reason is things might not go well. You won't know what to say, and you won't have plan for what to do. Having a script of some kind, even if you deviate from it, is ideal.

But let's say things go great, better than you expected. You leave class on a high, get back to your office, and sit down. Then you wonder, what did I just do? Unless you write notes of the class interaction, how are you going to repeat what you did for your next class or next semester (not that you can necessarily replicate results, but that's a mistake in thinking I'll tackle later)? So, you write down the class interaction. Okay, never mind that you're retroactively writing a lesson plan, which you may have been trying to avoid in the first place; what did you intend to accomplish in class? The only reason this question is important is, how do you know you accomplished what you intended?

This leads us to number eight.

Number Eight: No Assessment

I know I've said it here before, but you need to be able to assess whether or not you accomplished your objectives for a particular class. When many people hear the word "assessment," they think about statistical measurement. That's not necessarily what I mean. Sure, you can use tests. But you can also use qualitative measures like classroom discussion and written responses.

With assessment, you can better tell whether you accomplished what you wanted to in class that day. This, of course, assumes you also have learning objectives or goals (see my previous posts for more on that).

With assessment, you can tell what you need to tweak for next time. You shouldn't chuck your entire lesson plan because your assessment tells you you didn't meet your learning objectives for that day. Give it a few times. Then re-assess.

Teaching is nothing if not self-reflexive. Assessments help us as teacher be reflexive about what we accomplish in class.

Grading Tips, From The "Basics" of the Basic Communication Course: A Graduate Student Teacher's Survival Guide

From The "Basics" of the Basic Communication Course: A Graduate Student Teacher's Survival Guide

 

We all develop our own strategies in time. But below are some tricks and tips that I’ve found useful in grading. 

1. Become adept at writing comments on the rubric during the speakers’ speeches. Don’t worry about making eye contact with the speakers the whole time. The rest of class should be good audience members. You can, however, do quick scans of the classroom every now and then. In short, it's okay to not look at students for their entire speech if it means making constructive comments. 

2. On a separate sheet of paper, record your first impressions honestly. You won’t show students these comments, but they will help you once you get back to your office to grade. After competing in and coaching collegiate speech and debate for 11 years, I can accurately predict a speaker’s grade in the first 30 seconds of their speech. After you’ve been teaching for a while, your instincts will be similarly honed. 

3. Get the lay of the land. Wait to assign scores, and do not assign grades after each speech. Tentatively give a score for each rubric item for the first three speeches. Later, reflect on whether these are accurate. If so, then use them as a gauge for the rest of the speeches. Yes, students may want their grades quickly, but grading is not only a time for you to assess your students; it's a time for you to be reflexive about your own teaching.

For example, if none of your students include transitions for their speeches, does that mean the entire class is clueless? Might it be something in your instructions to them that was confusing? Did you not provide clear examples? Maybe they don't think transitions are important. Did you stress the importance of transitions to students? Obviously, if the answers to these questions lead you to believe there was something you could have explained more clearly, you'll want to carefully consider how harshly you'll grade your students on this aspect of the speech

You might ask, "Well, if I've got a rubric and each part of the rubric has been given a point or percentage weight, how can I grade "less harshly"? Remember our previous discussion about meeting the minimum requirements: if you think you could have explained something more clearly, perhaps your "minimum" benchmark can be altered. The students won't see this alteration; you might just give a Satisfactory score based on a lower benchmark.

It's true that you could simply take those points out of the equation altogether and reduce the total number of points for the speech. But that requires more reconfiguring on the back end as the total possible points for your class will change. You could add another assignment to make up those points, but your supervising faculty member may frown upon changing the syllabus when you're already into the semester. If you've included the caveat that the number and frequency of assignments may change based on the progress of the class, then you're likely to be technically in the right if you were to add another assignment. But, you've got your own classes to worry about in the meantime--do you really want to create more work yourself?

Grading Philosophy

Grading is probably one of the most difficult things for new teachers to grasp. It was for me, though I had some speech and debate judging under my belt by the time I started, so it was a little smother adjustment for me than for some. Over the years, I've whittled my philosophy down to a single phrase: students may be disappointed in their grade, but they should never be surprised by their grade. To enact this grading philosophy, we have a few tasks, which I’ve elaborated on below. I call them the “four E’s” of grading.

Below is another excerpt from my handbook for our graduate student teachers.

Expectations

We should already have assignment descriptions and rubrics for every single assignment, so this task is already accomplished to a large degree. Will students read this rubric before beginning work on their speeches? You’d think so, but surprisingly the answer is often “no.” This is where you come in; part of your job in making these expectations clear is draw their attention to, explain, and answer questions about the assignment. You will also do activities in class to help students explore and hone one or more skills required by the assignments.

Explanations

As I noted above, you should be explaining assignments to students. And part of your teaching philosophy should include clarity. But when it comes to a grading philosophy, an additional way to think about explanations is the feedback you provide students along with a letter grade. This feedback will serve several purposes.

First, this feedback will save you a lot of headaches. When students question you about their grade, complain about their grade, and attempt to persuade you to change their grade (and some will), you can rely on your detailed feedback as justification for why they received the grade they did. Obviously, this feedback should be related to the course objectives, assignment objectives, and/or the skills we want students to acquire. This feedback will also help me when these students come to see me to complain about said grade (which some do). This may seem like a cynical way to approach grading, but it’s just one of the practical uses of clear, detailed, explanatory feedback. In short, it can save us time and effort. And doing so save us from repeating ourselves.

Second, doing so contextualizes a letter grade into concrete suggestions for improvement. Although students may seem only concerned with a letter grade on an assignment, we must be sure to giving them concrete suggestions for improvements. Ideally, students will read these suggestions and use them to improvement their performance on future speeches. I’ve sat with many students in my office looking over a GTA’s completed rubric trying to explain to the students where the GTA was coming from, why the student got the grade he or she did, and what the student can do better in the future (Remember that time and effort we wanted to save?). By providing detailed feedback, we not only justify the grade given, hopefully circumventing any complaints, but we offer students something to think about for future speeches and assignments.

Encouragement

The third of our “three E’s” of grading also has to do with feedback. The feedback you provide will hopefully be encouraging. We need to tell the students what they’re doing well as well as what they can improve upon. Like suggestions for improvements, these encouraging remarks should be concrete as well. And like suggestions for improvements these encouraging remarks should be related to particular learning outcomes and skills.

Equilibrium

An often-used synonym for balance, our fourth “E” of grading refers to finding a balance between critique and encouragement, rigor and reasonableness, and fairness and compassion. As I explained above, your grading approach should include constructive criticism and encouragement. What I’m going to focus on in this section is reasonable rigor. To grade with rigor means you are demanding and fair, and reasonable in what you expect from your students.

Talking to many first-year students about grades, you might get the impression that they received all A’s in high school. This may be the case, but more often than not it usually not the case. Students may be trying to manipulate you, but what’s most likely is that they simply have to adjust to the rigorous standards we employ in our class and in university-level classes. When weighing how tough we’re being in our grading, there are a few tricks we can employ. I will detail these below.

What Should the Average GPA of My Class Be?

As long as you’re being clear, rigorous, and reflexive about your grading, you’re doing great. But as a way of entering the conversation, let’s consider what the average GPA of first-year students are. You can find the most recent information on SDSU student GPA by class level here. For years 2007-2011, the average GPA for male and female first-year students was 2.77[1]. When considering the own cumulative GPA of your own sections, whether on a particular assignment or at the end of semester, it’s sometimes useful to ask yourself, “What is the likelihood that my class will be much higher or lower than this?” The answer is, “Probably not very likely.”

For example, in a class of 24 students, if the average GPA is 3.2, you’re essentially communicating to me that I could walk into your class, pick a student at random to speak, and I’d see an above-average speaker. While that may be the case—some of us just get lucky and have a class of awesome speakers—my 20 years of teaching experience tells me that is not usually going to happen. As such, you can probably conclude that you’re not being rigorous enough in your grading.

Does this mean that you change students’ grades? Not at all. It just means that you should be reflexive about your grading process, continually asking yourself if you’re being too lenient, too hard and unreasonable, and how you might evolve in the future. But, keep in mind this rule of thumb: it’s better for classroom management, morale, and rapport with students to get easier with your grading as the semester goes on rather than harder.

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[1] http://university-stats.sdsu.edu/app/reports/GPA/all_gpa_.pdf

Teaching Philosophy: Why Do We Need One?

As another semester is over, and my thoughts turn toward the summer and beyond, the coming Fall semester. I have begun to work full force on our graduate teacher handbook. One of the sections is about teaching philosophies. This is an overlooked yet invaluable stage in the process of begun a teacher; it emphasizes rigorous self-reflection and an engagement with one's audience (in this case, the students).

Below is an excerpt from that particular section:

Teaching Philosophy: Why Do You Need One?

Every teacher should have a teaching philosophy. Think of the teaching philosophy as your mission statement. Sure, everyone wants to be a good teacher, but “good” can mean different things to different people (as can “teacher”). For example, to think that you’re going to come into one of the first classes you’ve ever taught and become a best friend, mentor, guru, and life coach to all of your students is a bit unrealistic. That’s not what you should be striving for, and I’m not sure if any teacher should be attempting to be all of those things. Student attitudes like those are likely a by-product of what the teacher actually accomplishes, like encouraging students to make connections between the material and their own lives, fostering critical thinking, and creating a welcoming classroom environment. So, put out of your mind for the time being visions of students chanting “O Captain! My Captain! (a la the film Dead Poets Society), and let’s discuss some concrete things you should be instituting in your classroom communication.

While everyone’s teaching philosophy will read differently (you can read mine[1] and get the basics of a Teaching Philosophy at http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/philosophy.html), there are some basic things you should keep in mind for your classroom communication with students. Each of these is explained below.

Frame Class Discussions and Activities

First, you can ask them to read the syllabus and assignment descriptions, but don’t assume they will. So, plan on providing summaries or overviews of the course policies and assignments. The same holds true for the textbook; we may assign them readings, but don’t assume they’ve read it. Any discussions you have on the textbook chapters should be preceded by a brief summary of the chapter. Don’t worry, you’re not doing their work for them because good discussion questions should prompt them to address things in much more detail than your summary (1-2 minutes) will provide.

Lesson Plans, Goals, and Assessments

Second, you should have a lesson plan for every class meeting. Experienced teachers may tell you they don’t need them, but they have likely internalized the important parts of the lesson plan and are incorporating them into their classroom communication. We’ll go over writing lesson plans in more detail later in the handbook. But for now, you should keep the following things in mind for each class meeting: what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to accomplish it, and—perhaps most importantly—how you will know you accomplished what you want.

This last part is one many teachers overlook. It requires some kind of assessment on your part. When most teachers hear the word “assessment,” they likely think of statistical measurements. What I mean is that you need some way to assess your students so that you know you’ve accomplished what you intended. If not, you can tweak the lesson plan for next time. This assessment could come in the form of a group discussion with carefully written questions that pertain to your objectives, a speech or some other classroom activity, or a written component (maybe some combination of these). Remember that we have assessments at the course level as well: graded speeches, exams, and quizzes in particular. But you need to approach your classes with assessment in mind, too.

Strive for Clarity and Transparency

Third, you should strive for clarity and transparency. We present the students with detailed rubrics for each speech assignment at the beginning of the semester. We also provide them with study guides for each chapter and sample exam questions. We have course policies regarding classroom conduct, treatment of classmates, absences, and so on. So, you already have a structure of clarity and transparency within which to work. The one thing we can’t provide the students with beforehand is grades, obviously. And this is where you should strive for clarity and transparency. This means provided substantial comments on grading rubrics that allow students to understand why they received the grade they did; they may not agree with you, but they should understand. It also means grading and posting grades, activity points, etc. in a timely fashion on their BlackBoard.

Create a Welcoming Environment

Finally, consider the ways in which you might create a safe and welcoming environment. Learning student names by the second week, altering seating arrangements when possible (for example, in a circle rather than rows), and being encouraging in your written and oral feedback to the students are ways you can create a welcoming environment. We’ll address more of these issues in the classroom management chapter and in our weekly orientations.

To Lead or To Manage?

In time, you’ll develop your own teaching philosophy. But here are some important questions to ask yourself: What does it mean to manage a class? What does it mean to lead a class? Are there different communication behaviors you must do for each? On what occasions might it be necessary to manage your class? When should you lead your class? These are all questions you will answer in your own way, in time.

Ultimately, two approaches have helped me in my teaching. The first is a quotation from John Cotton Dana, an influential librarian from the late 18^th and early 19^th century: “He [or she] who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” I like this, because I like to think of learning and teaching as inextricably intertwined. The second approach is taken from yoga, which I practice regularly. In short, if you think you’ve mastered yoga, you’re not really doing yoga. I think of teaching in the same way; if, at some point, you think you’ve mastered teaching, you’re not really teaching. Because teaching is about learning. We can readily accept that without teaching, there would be no learning. Of course, we need teachers to teach students. But I also believe that without learning, there would be no teaching. This not only means that we need students to teach. It also means that teachers need to continue learning.

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[1] http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~klindema/Lindemann%20Statement%20of%20Teaching%20Philosophy.pdf

Top Ten Graduate Teacher Mistakes: Number 9

This is a continuation of the "Top Ten" list I started several months ago. I realize now it was a pretty ambitious goal for me. I should have made it a Top Five list. At any rate, as promised, here's number nine:

Number Nine: Asking Too Many Questions
Some of my graduate student teachers may be reading this thinking, "Is he talking about me?" Well, yes, but not in a bad way. I'm talking about myself as well, I suppose. As I prep for my Fall classes, I'm faced with making assignments new again. And while I can plan things out, starting with learning outcomes and following through to some kind of assessment, there's no way I can really tell if something's going to work.

The more experience a teacher has, the better she can anticipate what questions and difficulties students might have. But she can never really know how a new lesson plan will turn out. Sometimes we have great stuff we think the students will love, and they don't. Other times, we might go in and wing it only to have things go great. When this happens I sometimes walk out of class thinking, "It's too bad I won't be able to replicate that dynamic every time, because that was great."

I encourage asking questions, and believe me, some graduate student teachers take this to heart and ask all sorts of things I honestly had never thought of before. While I can answer some--or most, I hope, some questions teachers have are better left unanswered. "Will this work?" I don't know. Maybe. Consider so-and-so and give it a try. "Is this activity a good idea?" Unless you're talking explicitly about sex or admonishing students about a particular religious point of view, you're probably safe. Give it a try. And so on.

The short answer: I don't know. The longer answer involves a communication theory, as most of my longer answers do: specifically, sense-making. Karl Weick, who forwarded said theory, is famous for a saying, which I'll paraphrase here: How do I know what I want to say until I see what I said? Setting aside for a moment the ableist language in that colloquialism (it privileges speaking and hearing as the primary knowledge-gaining senses), I like it and think it applies here. I realize this doesn't really hold water if we're accountable for students' test scores and such. But even within such constraints, in fact, some say only within constraints,  creativity and problem-solving coalesce in the art that is teaching.

Top Ten Graduate Student Teacher Mistakes: Number 10

As I wrap up another year of serving as Basic Course Director for our school, I'm reflecting on the progress of our graduate student teachers. They do some amazing things, make me look good, and--to my bemusement--attribute their teaching success to me when it sometimes appears to me if I've had little to do with how good they've become.

I think I only really, truly, began to get the hang of teaching in about my sixth year. I've been teaching college and university classes for about 18 years, and only now do I begin to feel like I might have some sort of advice to offer those just beginning to teach. Of course, I've been doing for this several years but have relied heavily on what others have said. Like any good scholar, I've begun to internalize those things, synthesize them, and take credit for them.

So, here is the first in a series of installments on some mistakes I've not witnessed graduate student teachers commit, and mistakes of which I myself am guilty (and how could I effectively teach them if I didn't first experience them?). I've resisted doing the typical scholarly thing and use parentheses, as in "Top Ten (Graduate Student) Teacher Mistakes." But hopefully you get the idea.

These are in no particular order, although I think the lower-stake mistakes are generally near the bottom.

Number Ten: No Lesson Plan
I used to think lesson plans were for elementary school teachers. College professors didn't need them, right? After all, they were teaching their specialty. They were afforded academic freedom, which meant talking about what they deemed relevant and appropriate. Students, basking in the glow of professors' knowledge, would write things down and ask questions, allowing the teacher to re-direct where necessary. Right?

Thankfully, I didn't actually put these ideas, accumulated from years of bad movies about college life, into practice. But I was shocked when I got into the college classroom and found it difficult to fill the hour or so talking about what I was already supposed to know. Teaching my first college class as a first-year M.A. student was terrifying, and I had done theatre and competitive speech and debate my whole life. I believe I spent the first 10 minutes or so reading from the book and hoping students would react to it. No lesson plan. I wasn't taught about lesson plans in my orientation, wasn't taught Bloom's taxonomy, learning objectives or outcomes, assessment...nothing.

So, one of the things I stress to my graduate student teachers is to create lesson plans. To not just think about what they want to say, but literally write out a lesson plan, beginning with learning outcomes and ending with assessment strategies (qualitative, e.g. discussions, and/or quantitative) that pair with a particular learning outcome. I ask them to also include the time each section might take and, if appropriate, the learning styles to which they might be appealing (I know some people have issues with the whole "learning styles" approach, but that's another subject for another post--for that matter, so is assessment).


I realize this sounds both simple and simplistic. But I'm always surprised, especially in the second semester onward, how many GTAs take the "been there, done that" approach and just go into class thinking, "I'm going to do this activity and it's going to be really cool." Okay, you've got the activity. So what? What's the purpose? How are you going to know whether the activity made any difference?

Now, I find myself doing this in my lectures: just going in and talking. Of course, I know what I want to say and what I have to cover, but I find myself glossing over learning outcomes as well.

As I write this, I can hear some of my colleagues advising teachers to stay flexible and not plan everything out, as some of the best teaching and learning moments emerge organically. And I agree. But I'm not sure beginning teachers can go there just yet. So, I advise creating lesson plans but maintain a flexible mind just in case.

One of the things I like about teaching is that I'm constantly learning. I'm learning as I write these, and as I present them to our graduate student teachers. And I encourage them not to take these as edicts, but as guidelines that will prompt a thoughtful and reflexive consideration of the classroom and of their teaching.

Next up, Number Nine: Asking Too Many Questions

Making the grade, assessing our grading

I know there are smarter people than me who have written about both of these subjects, but as the semester winds down I can't resist revisiting in a more colloquial way the two topics that are (likely not) near and dear to most teachers' hearts.

It is the point in the semester when students begin asking about their grades, points, can they be "bumped" up since they're so close to the next highest grade, there was an illness they forgot to bring a note in for, they over slept the final exam period, etc. I know these are valid concerns for students, and I was certainly the sort of student who was hyper-concerned with his grades. So, I can give forgive them the barrage of e-mails here. And I don't blame students for often missing the big picture of whether and what they actually learned in class (this is the assessment part). However, the grades-assessment dynamic is something that's easy to lose sight of for teachers as well as students (if students even think about assessment).

I'm not saying grades and assessment have to be dichotomous; it just all too often seems like they are. Students are concerned with grades. Teachers are concerned with assessment. Students don't care about assessment unless it's tied into their grades. After some students engage in what is commonly called "grade grubbing," many teachers just want to chuck the whole grading system out the office window.

I admit, grading is my least favorite teaching duty. I also admit that assessment is one of my favorite. I think this is because I enjoy the myriad possibilities of assessment. In addition to exams, I use reflective writing, presentations, discussions, and short performances. Of course, I have to assign grades (in my case, points) to each of these activities so students will take them seriously. And I suppose that's a common way grading and assessing are folded into each other.

What I'm more concerned with is where these folds rip and grading and assessment appear if not incommensurable then two patches from a different quilt. As I'm sure many teachers and students can attest, getting a good grade doesn't always mean that one has learned something. And, certainly, one can learn something valuable and not achieve the desired grade.

I'm not necessarily offering answers; most teachers will tell you there are no easy ones. And then they'll digress into a highfalutin discussion about it: "isn't interesting that...," "the pedagogical tensions..." Which is what I suppose I'm doing right now. But teaching is a learning process, so I constantly have to ask myself: Am I making the grade on assessment for my classes?