Learning Teaching Excellence (the Hard Way)
When I first began teaching in the sociology department at Queens College I was also new to the Graduate Center. At the end of each semester emails go out looking for adjuncts and those emails continue right up to, and sometimes well beyond, the first day of classes. I thought that teaching would be an interesting supplement to my professional work and my studies. By the time I spoke with the department chair I had about two weeks to prepare my class. I was hired to teach sociology of death and dying, an advanced level undergraduate class. The chair could not have been more accommodating and encouraging, but I felt like a poser putting together a syllabus on a topic of which I had little more than a layperson’s knowledge.
Since then I have prepared many other classes, sometimes with more and sometimes with less time to do so. I continue to marvel at the broad discretion I’ve had in developing and conducting my classes. In deciding what readings and assignments to require, how much to expect of students, and how to determine their progress, I am left almost entirely alone. As far as I know, no one reviews my syllabi to let me know if I have missed a key component of teaching research methods, an important article in the sociology of crime, or a required exam at the end of the semester. No one tests my knowledge of the material I teach and no one tests my competence to teach it. Sure, a faculty member will observe me at some point during the semester, but in my experience these kind colleagues seek to support adjunct effort, perhaps making one suggestion for pedagogic improvement such as “write on the board more” but not offering more sustained critiques either formally or informally. In other words, I was not always sure that I would give myself the laudatory reviews that I received, and I knew there were areas where I could improve.
For example, I was regularly concerned that I was not as successful as I could be at engaging students. By choice I teach a required class (research methods for social science). Each semester I ask the students if anyone is here because you want to be. No hands go up. Because you have to be? Lots of hands. But I love research and I want the students to end up getting something out of my class – getting a lot out of it actually – even if they never apply their knowledge professionally. To engage students I encourage conversation, I use examples that could be relevant or interesting to them, I cajole, I encourage. But every semester some students don’t seem to get even the simplest points I try to make. Every semester there are at least a couple of midterms that make my heart sink. To wit: yesterday I defined a basic term, “variable,” in my Fall 2007 research methods class, then I gave a few examples. Then I asked for some examples from the class. Hands shot up, but the first person I called on did not give a suitable example, he was confused and unclear. Others got it and offered, “age,” “race,” and “gender” in rapid fire, but I was left wondering how I could have been clearer for that first student.
Another always potentially demoralizing experience is grading papers. Some papers are terrific. They are well-written, focused, and interesting. But too many papers suffer both in writing and content. This type of paper fails to present a coherent thesis, fails to understand the role of secondary literature, and fails to demonstrate even logical reasoning. Writing centers help students who seek them out, but not all students do. Even if I recommend seeking assistance from a writing center, I feel that I have an obligation to indicate problems when I see them. This is a slippery slope though: it seems ineffective to point out a problem without guidance about ways to address it. It also seems likely that a heavily marked paper will discourage a student more than develop the student’s skills. And how much time can I put into each piece of writing (on my adjunct salary) anyway?
What can I do better? I think to myself. What do you do? I ask my friends who are tenured professors at CUNY and other schools across the country.
Proceeding this way, I taught for three years while I also worked fulltime and tried (unsuccessfully) to keep up with my responsibilities as a student. But after my son was born I realized that something had to give and at the beginning of 2007 I left my job to focus on school and being a mom. My new schedule gave me more time to think about teaching. I began to wonder whether other graduate student teachers harbored concerns about the quality of their teaching as I did. And I began to imagine what could be done to improve teaching.
Many schools have faced this challenge – it is not unique to CUNY nor is it unique to adjunct and other student teachers. While some teaching skills develop with the experience and confidence of the teacher, others are strengthened by instruction, guidance and effort – exercises that all faculty can engage in. Some university websites (such as Harvard http://bokcenter.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do; The University of Michigan http://www.crlt.umich.edu; and Vanderbilt University http://www.vanderbilt. edu/cft/index.htm) offer resources such as tip sheets, articles, and theory much of which are available to anyone.
Here at the Graduate Center the Provost’s Office offers classes in professional development that are open to all students. Now at my instigation and with much help from Carl Lindskoog of the Adjunct Project, the Adjunct Project has begun a new initiative on teaching excellence. Our first event on Sept. 25th is a roundtable discussion on teaching that I will chair. Participants will be a faculty member, an adjunct, a professional from a CUNY Learning Center, and one from one of the CUNY Teaching Centers. Carl and I are organizing the event and planning additional events. We hope this event will generate interest among CUNY teachers and lead to the involvement of more people around the Graduate Center as well as resource development, peer-to-peer learning, and development of best practices. Our goals for the event are to generate interest in developing teaching skills and resources for all CUNY faculty; provide information about the resources that do exist; and encourage dynamic discussion about how to make teaching more engaging and effective.
Leave a Reply
