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Daniel
Richardson |
It is indeed quite an honor to have been
selected as the 2006 Arthur C. Guyton Teacher of the Year by the American
Physiological Society, and I am deeply appreciative of the society for
offering this award and of those who supported my nomination for it.
However, it is a bit troublesome to be singled out in this manner, since no
one “wins” an award of this nature on their own. In my case I have over 40
years worth of folks to thank for their encouragement and support of my
teaching pursuits, and it is on their behalf that I accept this award.
Without them, I could not have obtained even a modest level of teaching
competency.
There are far too many to list even a fraction of the people involved with
my teaching career. However, the group that stands out as the most
influential in my development as a teacher are the students themselves, and
I have been fortunate to have had a career that has allowed me to teach a
wide range of students; from fourth graders to undergraduate non-science
majors to health care professionals to graduate students.
What, in my experience, fourth graders through graduate students have in
common is an innate desire to learn. In this context, what teaching seems to
be all about, whether in a fourth grade or graduate school setting, is
fostering students’ desire to learn, then facilitating their learning. As
the Committee on Undergraduate Science Education of the National Research
Council put it, someone has not taught unless someone else has learned (2).
Teaching, as the aforementioned science education committee defines it,
involves much more than the dissemination of information to a class of
students. No matter how well organized or eloquently information is
presented, learning will not occur until the information is cognitively
internalized into an existing mental schema of the learner. Terms such as
“comprehend” and “understand” are what are meant by the internalization of
information. (i.e., the information becomes an integral part of the
learner). Accordingly, teaching is the collective behaviors, procedures, and
methods that teachers use to facilitate the cognitive process of learning.
How does a teacher foster a desire to learn and then become a facilitator of
learning? To take the latter first, the education buzz word for the process
that best facilitates learning is active learning. However, the term active
learning is somewhat of a misnomer because its opposite passive learning
doesn’t exist. That is, learning will take place if, and only if, a student
is actively engaged with the material being presented. In getting students
to become engaged in a topic, I have found that active learning is not a
particular method, but rather a shared attitude between students and
teachers that allows them to perform as a team—a team in which teachers
orchestrate the processes and procedures for learning to occur and students
become engaged in these processes in ways that learning will occur (4). In
other words, with regard to the role of the teacher, it is not what you do
but how you do it. In a philosophical frame, this begins by establishing an
atmosphere of mutual respect between instructor and students, and it helps
if the usual notion of “teacher–student” as a distinct dichotomy gives way
to a more collegial relationship in which instructors and students are
partners in the learning process. Once respect is established, the innate
desire of students to learn will surface.
How is mutual respect between instructor and students established? In my
experience, a good starting point is to let the students know you as a
person. Take some time to relate how you got to be where you are–-in front
of a class–-including failures as well as successes along the way. Following
this, do a get acquainted activity that the students can participate in. A
simple one that works well, particularly in a small class, is to share some
of your favorite things, like favorite food, favorite pastime, etc. To help
the students feel comfortable with this, use yourself as an example before
asking them to relate their items to the class. Having the students
participate in some sort of get acquainted activity early on in the course
helps to establish a habit of student participation in a non-threatening
atmosphere.
Once the class gets into course material, an effective way to continue to
establish, and maintain, mutual respect is for teachers to recognize the
importance of students’ own ideas and experiences and to encourage them to
incorporate these into learning new material. Relating new information to
existing knowledge increases student interest and facilitates the learning
process. And, yes, even fourth graders have a lot of experiences that, when
tapped, can help them in the learning process.
Utilizing experience in teaching is where the idea of relevance comes in.
Regardless of how you do it—lecture, discussion, case-based learning,
whatever—material should be presented in a relevant manner. And I don’t mean
relevance as in “this will be on the exam.” I mean relevance as in “this
material directly affects your life.” The best way to do this is through
examples that students themselves come up with based on their own life
experiences. For example, a good lead in to presenting the nervous system is
to discuss the sense of smell. Have students think of smells that evoke
pleasant memories or ones that conjure unpleasant memories. This can lead to
coverage of almost the entire central nervous system including the emotional
correlates of memory. Again, to give students an idea of what you are asking
them to do, start with yourself. I tell the story of how I don’t like the
smell of perfume because when I was about four or five years old a lady came
into my dad’s automotive repair shop reeking of the stuff so bad that I got
sick and threw up. My students love this story because they can all picture
a four-year-old kid upchucking and the fact that I was that kid, and willing
to tell them about it, lets them know that I am human and makes them feel
more comfortable in the class. The important point is that once you relate a
personal story of your own to a class, it will open a floodgate of similar
personal experiences from your students which will help to make the topic
being discussed relevant and will facilitate learning.
In short, my experience tells me that teachers facilitate learning by first
and foremost establishing a collegial classroom atmosphere based on mutual
respect that recognizes that we are partners with our students in the
learning process. Once such mutual respect is established, students’ innate
desire to learn will surface and they will become engaged in the class. As a
result, learning will take place regardless of the academic level of the
class or of the particular pedagogical methods used to cover course content.
Given that, if students are engaged in the course, they will learn
independent of teaching methodology; if you prefer didactic lectures, use
them. But first, take some time to “actively” engage the students so that
they become comfortable with you and mutual respect is established. Then
when lecturing, don’t just rattle on for 50 or so minutes straight, but
break the lecture up with brief activities that give the students a chance
to participate. Asking questions and/or relating personal stories that
underscore relevance makes a good lecture break. Additionally, there is a
wealth of guidebooks that are full of active learning suggestions. For
example, Angelo and Cross (1) have presented a large variety of brief active
learning exercises that they have termed “classroom assessments.” These seem
to work well as intermittent activities that can be sprinkled into a
didactic lecture. More recently, Michael and Modell (3) have presented
details, as well as providing some theoretical underpinnings, on
incorporating brief active learning activities in the lecture hall. These
seem to be particularly well suited to the teaching of physiology, probably
because the authors are physiologists.
If you are ready to scrap didactic lectures and use active learning methods
as your mainstay, then do that, but limit yourself to the methods and
procedures with which you are comfortable. Nothing falls flatter on its face
than a teaching procedure with which the instructor is uncomfortable or
unfamiliar. I have certainly had my share of these, and one that
particularly stands out is “role playing.” I am too shy and inhibited to
have even thought about doing such a thing as role playing in a classroom,
let alone actually try it. But I did, and it was a complete disaster.
Another active learning exercise that I have attempted several times without
success is “concept mapping.” Regardless of how many times the “experts”
have explained it to me on cocktail napkins at Experimental Biology, I just
don’t get it. (What’s the difference between a concept map and a flow
chart?) If I, as an instructor, don’t understand something like concept
maps, it is for sure my students won’t, and didn’t. But, for me, the
important thing was that before my active learning disasters occurred, the
students and I had established an atmosphere of mutual respect and they were
engaged in the course. As a result, they quickly forgave me; so we had a
good laugh and moved on. And your students will forgive you for your
blunders if mutual respect is present. So, my parting words of wisdom are
that by establishing an atmosphere of mutual respect in the classroom,
students will become engaged in the course and, as long as they feel that
you have their interests at heart, they will be tolerant of you trying
different teaching methods and procedures. So, don’t be afraid to try new
things. No matter what, your students will learn if mutual respect is an
integral part of your classroom culture.
References
1. Angelo, TH and KP Cross. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook
for College Teachers, 2nd edition, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 427 pp,
1993.
2. Committee on Undergraduate Education (CB Moore, Chair). Science
Teaching Reconsidered: A Handbook, National Academy Press, Washington,
DC, 88 pp, 1997.
3. Michael, JA and HI Modell. Active Learning in the Secondary and
College Science Classrooms: A working model for helping the learner to learn.
Lawrence Erlbaum and Assoc., Mahwah, NJ, 171 pp, 2003.
4. Richardson, D. Active learning: A personal view. Adv. Physiol. Ed.
10: S79-S80, 1993.
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