Last quarter, I took a class called "Advanced University Pedagogy" with other grad students in various departments here at UCR. This quarter, I am working on putting together a teaching portfolio, which consists of essays, teaching statements, teaching evaluations, annotated syllabus, presentation, and so on. We read from a number of books as part of the course and I thought I'd share something interesting I learned about being an effective professor. The following passage is taken from Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty by Elizabeth Barkley:
For those of us accustomed
to teaching data-intensive courses, it is difficult to shift
the emphasis
from the learning of information to learning how to find and then use the information. Information recall is easier to teach,
test, and maybe even to learn. Nevertheless,
changing the focus of your course from content coverage (which is usually information-driven)
to uncovering the content (which is usually process- and application-driven)
is more relevant to the changed environment in which students must function
both during
and after college.
(p. 87 Barkley)
This is powerful.
All the information we learn and teach in college can easily be found in
books and on the Internet. So why
do people keep coming to college?
Not so they can learn the information, but so they can learn how to find and use information. In my
mind, thinking about this should change the way a lot of professors teach. We’ve all been in classes with
“information overload”. Professors
should be less concerned about covering all the material and more concerned
with teaching students how to uncover the material on their own.
