Effective Teaching part 3

Some teachers make student learn by having more tests in class, but this method has limited results. Students can memorize materials to pass tests, but they will forget most of it after the tests. To teach effectively, teachers need to focus on students’ curiosity and motivation to make them want to learn and become lifelong learners.

Twenty-five years ago, when I began teaching, I often explained the curriculum on the first day of class. I talked about each topic, what students will learn, as well as the date of each test so they can prepare. I did that because when I was a student, most of my teachers also did that. Today I do not talk about the curriculum anymore. It is posted on the class website, and students can read it themselves. I start the first day of class by invite student on an “education journey” where they will learn many things. Since every journey has a goal, I ask students to define their goal on what they want to learn. For example, in the “Introduction to Java Programming,” I want the students to tell me what would be their goal when they complete the class?” By letting students to discuss their goals and expectations, I can adjust the materials to meet their needs. For example, I may ask: “Would your goal be to be able to write 1000 lines of code in Java? Or to build an exciting mobile application? Of course, most students do not pay attention to whether they can write many lines of code, but they would be excited about develop a mobile app, and they are motivated to learn more.

What I want is connect my course materials to students’ interests and make their work more relevant. I ask questions, raise issues that matter to them. When students want to write an App for mobile phones, I ask: “What would be the skills you need to do that, besides programming? Students will talk about different platforms such as IOS and Android. I tell them: “OK, today we will learn about IOS, then next week we will learn about Android.” This is how I start the class each week by letting students chose what they want to learn. By asking the right question, a teacher still can lead them to follow the course curriculum. Sometimes students would identify topics they care about, and I would use their questions as a means of learning content. For example, when students are concerned about mobile security on their smartphone, I would say: “OK, let us discuss the mobile security topics today. Who want to start the discussion?” When students are interested in what they are learning, they will pay more attention to the subject. They will think about it, read about it, and learn about it, at deeper level. The more they know about the subject, the more they are motivated to learn more.

To make students interest in learning more, each month I invite an industry speakers to my class to share their experience. Students love to hear about “real situations.” But they do not just listen, after the talk, they must analyze the “situation” and write a report about it. For example, when a speaker talk about how his company hire people, student must write a paper on what skills they need to pass an interview and get a job. When a speaker talk about career advancing, students must write about all the skills they need to move up in a company. By mixing academic materials and real situation learning, students will have a better view about their career and what they could do in their future.

I like to challenge the students to go beyond the academic materials so students can develop a lifelong learning. Students who only want to pass tests or get good grades, often do not go further on their educational journey. They are afraid of making mistakes in tests as they see that as failures, NOT an important part of learning. I believe students must learn from their failure and as long as they can overcome their failure, they will be strong enough to overcome other obstacles in their lives. When a student did not do well, I always challenge them by asking “Did you try your best?” or “Is it your best effort? Would you like to do it again? I believe in giving them a second chance. If they fail the test, they must do it again until they learn from their mistake. Many professors do not like this “second chance” approach because they believe in “Pass or Fail” and no exception. But by doing at, their students may never learn from their mistakes and will afraid of learning.

My question is, do we want students to learn something; even they may have to learn from mistakes, or just want them to pass or fail? A successful academic student may not succeed in life, but a student who learn from mistakes, even they may fail many times, but keep on learning from their mistakes, will have better chance to succeed in life. Sometimes I challenge the whole class when giving a difficult assignment: “Let me see you best efforts, do not worry about the grade, do not worry about this test. I only want to see what can you do.” I want all my students NOT afraid of failure, NOT worry about grade, but learn from their experience. If they fail, then they should get back, and learn to be resilience and persistent so they could overcome other obstacles later in their lives. They should view academic difficulties just as an obstacles to overcome, not something that fail them in their lives. I want students to think deeper about their work by asking them: “Why this algorithm is better than other? How is X related to Y? What is the key concept of this chapter? How does this material connect to what you learned before? If students can make these connections, their learning will take them further on their education journey and develop a long-term perspective.

At CMU, students often tell others that my classes are difficult. Some students would avoid taking my class, prefer other professors. But I believe if the class is easy, student will not motivate much to learn. Too easy also means the value of the class is low, students would consider it is NOT important and not learning much. To develop the Lifelong learning, teachers must challenge the students by asking more questions that make them think and motivates them to start the education journey.

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University

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