We all remember how differently each one of our college professors taught. There were the informal, class-discussion types, the large lecture types, the ones who were tethered to their PowerPoint presentations, and the charismatic performers. Some were great at what they did, and some were not; I found that the teaching technique was not what made one professor better than another; it had more to do with their idiosyncratic styles. Saying that college professors should simply learn how to teach “better” — whatever “better” means — doesn’t take into account the magic that can be part of a teacher’s delivery. (It’s also true that a weak professor can make even a fascinating subject boring.) An integral part of any testing initiative has been professional development designed to help teachers become more effective at boosting student scores. The problem is that those workshops oversimplify the learning process by assuming that learning is based on the merit of the message.
| What Kids Are Reading |
| This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories. Information on the books below came from Amazon.com’s list of children’s bestsellers; they are listed in order of popularity. |
| Books On the New Year |
| The Night Before New Year’s by Natasha Wing and Amy Wummer (Ages 4-8) |
| P. Bear’s New Year’s Party: A Counting Book by Paul Owen Lewis (Baby-Preschool) |
| Shante Keys and the New Year’s Peas by Gail Piernas-Davenport and Marion Eldridge (Ages 4-8) |
| Slappy New Year! by R.L. Stine (Ages 9-12) |
| New Year’s Day by David F. Marx (Ages 4-8) |
| Happy New Year, Mallory! by Laurie B. Friedman and Jennifer Kalis (Ages 9-12) |
| Amelia’s Must-Keep Resolutions for the Best Year Ever! by Marissa Moss (Ages 9-12) |
| Just in Time for New Year’s!: A Harry & Emily Adventure by Karen Gray Ruelle (Ages 4-8) |
Workshops, like classrooms, are only as successful as the messenger. That is why the College Learning Assessment tests, the subject of my last two columns, may run into trouble at the level of faculty training. One of its selling points is the promise that professors will alter their teaching methods to improve student performance on the real-world tasks measured by the CLA.
Yet looking at the format of the CLA “Performance Task Academy,” designed as the training ground for college professors, I have deja-vu: the two-day agenda looks exactly like all those high school development workshops I’ve taken part in, and even conducted myself. There are great ideas embedded in the hands-on activities, as well as the small group and large group discussions. But I’ve been there before, and know these academies will be met with eye rolling unless the person at the head of the room is inspirational.
And that brings us back to the paradoxical nature of learning. Students — including employees undergoing training and college professors — respond as much to the person delivering content as they do to the content itself. “Hamlet” is a great play, but students appreciate its greatness much more when they have a teacher whose style engages their minds.
Similarly, good ideas about teaching or learning need to be presented by someone whom the audience trusts and will feel inspired by. The complicated nature of learning is something administrators of schools at all levels refuse to acknowledge. So even though I endorse the CLA tests for institutions of higher learning, I am doubtful that the faculty training aspect of the initiative will be successful. College professors will need to be inspired to adopt the proffered strategies.
There is more to learning than absorbing content. It’s a complicated transaction between teacher and student that’s contingent on the “student” (in this case the college professor) responding to the instructor’s style as well as to the subject itself. Teacher training never acknowledges the intangibles of good teaching, nor the need to inspire those in the audience. It’s time to stop oversimplifying the teaching process; when we do, we’ll come closer to understanding paradoxes in the learning process as well.
Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected]
