NUTSHELL NOTES "Teaching tips in a nutshell" - The University of Colorado at Denver's One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence

Director's Note: Bruce Kirschner began his first year of university teaching in 1993-1994 as an adjunct instructor in UCD's Political Science Department. He contacted UCD's Office of Teaching Effectiveness several months before he began teaching and has used the resources of the office extensively. Bruce was invited to write this article because of the unusual success he has demonstrated as a beginning teacher. He achieved outstanding ratings from students, and holds the record in results on UCD's Survey of Classroom Skills. We know that we hire adjunct professors because of their expertise, but we also often acquire individuals with unusual dedication and abilities as teachers along with that expertise. At present, we don't have a formal way to recognize and reward the most outstanding teaching accomplishments of our adjunct faculty—perhaps we should find a way.

Bruce's observations are useful to all of us, but they are particularly suited to new faculty, honoraria, and graduate assistants who are here teaching at UCD for their first time. While it pained my pride to violate my own maxim for one-page newsletters (this one is continued on the back), the information is more important than my tradition. So— forgive me just this once— and thanks, Bruce!

The 1993-94 academic year marked my first year of university teaching as an instructor in public administration and public policy for the Political Science Department. I had been in and out of formal learning environments for most of my life, and I knew pretty well what I liked and didn't like about classrooms. I chose to depart from the traditional teaching paradigm of teacher as fountain of knowledge and student as open vessel. The results made for an exciting and rewarding year.

Serving as Learning Leader — My self-assigned role as coach, facilitator, consultant, and resource me to get my students more actively involved in their own learning. Early in the semester, I scheduled after-class one-on-one conferences with each student to determine what their individual interests were so that I could lead them to the best possible classroom experience. These sessions were of great value because they helped me to learn early how I could constantly tailor the course to best meet students' needs.

Emphasizing Practical Application and Doing It in Real-Time — My field, like other academic areas, has challenging, current issues. Issue-oriented, supplemental newspaper and magazine articles produced high levels of interest. Students were motivated by class projects designed to be current, practical, and useful. As course projects, students independently researched a government agency and its operations or studied a public policy issue. This research required personal interviews. Students thus engaged the subject matter by closely viewing the inner workings of government machinery or of policy issues. Concurrently, they were developing useful research skills, such as interviewing, and also improving their writing and oral presentation abilities. Some even picked up promising job leads in the process.

Fostering Critical Thinking — The ability to critically examine the external environment and to make informed decisions is an invaluable real world skill. Promoting the development of critical thinking skills is not something students should be expected to get from the traditional lecture. To foster this ability, I sought out analytical tools, such as paradigms or models, that they could apply to many different situations. Using such tools as frameworks for inquiry encouraged students to ask the kinds of questions required to get the real answers. Motivating students to continue to ask questions and seek out the right information on their own was a constant challenge.

Seeking High Involvement — Most students seemed genuinely surprised that I was interested in hearing from them about how we could mold the course around their needs. In the "Public Policy and Administration" course, enough flexibility was allowed to examine two local issues of greatest interest to students and then to bring in selected speakers on these topics. Getting high involvement was simple: a round-robin brainstorm was conducted to generate a universal list of public policy issues; then each student spread a given number of votes to the list. Two topics easily fell out on top. The same process was used to select the speakers on these topics.

Being Up-front — Students, like most people, appreciate honesty, openness, and directness. One of the first things I told my students was that I wasn't an "expert" on the subject of the course: I didn't know as much as they thought I did, and they knew more than they thought they did. Tapping the class's "in-house" expertise proved beneficial. The syllabus and subsequent instructive sessions clarified my expectations, and even my requirements for proper spelling and grammar. Students like to know what's coming, so I was sure to provide them, at the start of each class, my detailed agenda for that session.

Mixing It Up — I found that employing a diversity of teaching methods helped to stimulate thinking and class participation. Lecture seemed most effective when introducing new material and using anecdotal experience to illustrate key points. I found all of the following of great value at different points: short videos, newspaper articles, speakers, collaborative learning exercises, case studies, anecdotes, and open discussions. I even demonstrated a national health care policy simulation game (called "SimHealth") using a laptop computer and overhead projection panel. The speakers included a small town city manager, the former Senate minority leader, an assistant commissioner of education, a former Colorado government lobbyist, a juvenile detention center director, a charter school dean, and a Colorado state representative. They served to integrate theory and practice. Having two or more speakers with opposing views in at the same time created a dynamic tension for an even more stimulating presentation. There is no shortage of enthusiastic and thought-provoking speakers in the Denver area who are willing to come and talk to a class.

Using the Teaching Command Center — Last, but far from least, I made extensive use of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness. It played a key role in my first year's success. The office is a veritable storehouse of resources that were instrumental in guiding me in the right direction. The mid-term evaluations I conducted both semesters were invaluable for making informed changes to my plans. The evaluations will be a fixture in my classes every semester, and I intend to continue to use the office on a regular basis.