teaching philosophy, 6/99 (revised 6/2001, 7/2004)
Dear Students,
I was filling out a loan application a few years ago, and one of the questions on the application was "how many years of schooling do you have: (a) less than 12 (b) 13-16 (c) more than 16 (specify)". I quickly answered "C", then somewhat embarrassed I had to admit to being a registered student in school for 32 years. A good bit of that was as a graduate student, and during that time I saw a good number of graduate students fail mostly because they didn't understand what was required (namely that they had to choose a topic and a committee and go do work essentially on their own without the guidance of a text book or lab manual.) I have known several students who sailed through the course work, but when it came time to write a thesis, they never finished, and some never quite got started.
The same holds for many of my students now. This is one attempt to tell students what I expect from them. These opinions may or may not be shared by others at this institution.
It seems obvious to me, but this is college, not grade school or high school. I expect different behavior from students than my high-school-teaching friends expect from their students. I expect critical thought. While certain facts and definitions must be memorized, they are merely a prerequisite for learning. I cannot generalize unless I have some examples, and I suspect that most of my students have the same difficulty.
Students and folks outside the academic environment sometimes complain that the academics (e.g., me) don’t teach the things the students need to know. This complaint is often accompanied by a litany of things that sound important to the speaker at the time. (My most vivid memory is someone saying, “why don’t you teach them something they need in the real world like how to use Quatro!”) B. F. Skinner said "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." I can't hope to teach you enough for you to remain informed or literate for even a few years. I don't even know what you will need to know in the future. It is entirely possible that the technology you will need to use next year is not yet available. The only thing I can assure you with certainty is that by the time you graduate, things will have changed.
My goal in teaching is not for you to understand how to do any particular task such as writing a sorting routine in C++. My goal is for you to know enough to go find out on your own how to do what you need to do, regardless of the tool or technology. If I succeed, when the tools you use now are as old and arcane as Executive Secretary and VisiCalc, you'll be able to use the tools that are available. The well-worn statement, "Give me a fish and I eat for a day; Teach me to fish …" expresses my goal: I want you to learn how to learn on your own.
Most of what I know that's useful to me now I learned outside of the classroom.
I remember my first day in high school, in gym class on a hot, sticky, August afternoon in a school in a corn field in the humid Midwest, sixty scrawny kids sitting in awe as some old (he seemed ancient at the time, though 40 doesn't seem so ancient now) PE instructor/coach hung from a chin-up bar and lectured to us in a booming voice, "I … don't expect … you to do … anything … I can't do", in each pause pulling is chest up to the bar and slowly dropping down again, a total of twenty pull-ups while lecturing us, and that his sixth class of the day. I remember we couldn't do twenty pull-ups. Most of us managed one or two. We couldn't run a mile or do sixty sit-ups either; but by the end of the year, we did all that and more in the first few minutes of class every class twice a week.
I think of that each day as I enter the classroom. If the coach had told us that one or two pull-ups and a lap around the track was enough, that's what we would have done, and that's what we would have been doing at the end of the year. The thought of doing twenty pull-ups was inconceivable to us that first day of class, yet every one of us developed that ability over time. I feel obligated to ask you to do things that, while they seem to you to be impossible, I know that you can do them in time.
As an undergraduate, I was sitting in the department office waiting for a signature on some obscure piece of paper destined for some obscure file cabinet in some building devoted to administration. I overheard two professors, one of whom I'm sure was describing me when he said, "he just doesn't know what hard work is yet." Now, years later, I am caught trying to convince students that they can work hard, they can achieve these impossible dreams, but that it really does take hard work. (Think for a moment how you would describe the color green to someone who has been blind since birth.) I don't know how to tell you about hard work. If you think you know, you might know, or you might be wrong.
There is a distasteful part of my job which falls under the title "assessment". Each semester I have to assess my students and assign grades to them. Frankly, I do not like it, but it is part of my job. I have a responsibility to my employers. They have a responsibility to accreditation boards and the state. I don't give grades. I am not able to reliably quantify how much you worked, how much you know, and how much you learned. So let me tell you a couple of things I consider when I assign grades.
I was climbing a mountain a few years ago, and this particular mountain is renowned for its brutal weather. Before I attempted the summit, I met a great mountaineer who told me, "It doesn't matter how long or how hard you trained, how much you paid, or how good you are. The mountain doesn't owe you the summit. If you're lucky and the storms clear and there aren't avalanches and you’re healthy and you have a healthy partner and you persevere, you might make it, but you never deserve it."
Suppose you had a brain tumor and required surgery to live more than a week. There are two doctors in town: one studied thousands of hours, pouring over the books, the homework, the lab, the operating room, gave every ounce of effort he had, but could not hold the scalpel steady; the other doctor skipped classes and played golf on Wednesdays, but had done exactly this kind of surgery successfully a hundred times last year. Your chance of surviving with the first doctor is slim. Your chance of surviving with the second doctor is very good. Which doctor would you choose?
This brings us back to the assessment problem. Not everyone in my class will be above average. The simple but painful fact is that how hard you work is not the basis upon which grades are given. How much you know is not the basis upon which grades are given. Grades will be given on your demonstration of mastery of the material presented: Exams. Homework. Projects. You must demonstrate that you know enough of the material that we decided you had to know in order to pass. (Be warned, the level of effort is a pretty good predictor of student success. The harder you work, the greater you probability of success. The mountaineer who trains is more likely to reach the summit. But the measure will be your demonstration of mastery.) I can't give you a grade. I can't change your grade just because you worked hard. I can't let you do extra projects and pass my class after the fact. In order to succeed in my classes, you must clear the bar, and the height of that bar is set by the expectations of my employers and my department. Please, please, please, figure out how to demonstrate that you have mastered the material before the end of the course. I will help you. Honest. I like watching students succeed.
Summary:
- I don't expect you to be able to do every task, understand every statement, or solve every problem immediately. Like muscles, your mind grows with practice.
- I won't give you every answer, and I won't even show you every path to an answer. Part of what you should learn as an undergraduate is how to discover those paths on your own. Part of what you learn as a graduate student is how to discover the questions on your own.
- I try to assign grades on the basis of your demonstration of ability, not on your level of effort. I try to assign grades fairly, and rarely do I assign grades without discussing them with my colleagues.
- I expect you to learn how to learn.
- I expect you to learn how to work hard, even if it takes time, even if it seems painful.
- I expect you to tell me when you don't understand.
- I expect you to read the text book and practice more problems than I assign.
- I expect you to learn how to take advantage of the opportunities and resources available.
- I expect you to participate in your education. You will not learn by osmosis.
F. F. Skinner, New Methods and new aims in teaching, New Scientist, No. 392, May 1964, pp 483-484.