There are many ways in which a teacher can teach creatively and effectively. You will draw on a variety of skills and various kinds of knowledge throughout your career as a teacher. You may find that your teaching temperament changes as you move from one job to another or from one classroom context to another. Your teaching style may change as you go through professional and personal life changes. Attending to how you understand your role, your strengths, and your vulnerabilities is an important part of preparing to teach effectively.
The following two elements are crucial for effective pedagogy with adult learners, whatever your teaching style may be. You have your own ideas about what is essential for good pedagogy as well. Share them with your teaching fraternity colleagues!
1) Flexibility regarding the ways in which you judge students competently to have addressed themselves to the learning in the course. Some students with strong training in literary criticism may be able to write papers extremely well but have little sense of the issues at stake in a particular argument. Other students, perhaps second-career types or pastors who are only now coming back for their academic credentials, may express their ideas more haltingly in writing but may have a wonderfully seasoned, mature view of issues related to its proper interpretation. Some students may feel the pressures of their own interpretive communities (ecclesial or academic) so acutely that they cannot risk opening themselves to some of the ways of thinking that we emphasize in the course. They may seem not to have mastered the finer points of a method when what is (also) going on is that they are resisting the world view that the method implies. Yet other students may be solid or even gifted students who do not apply themselves to the writing tasks or to studying for the exam, so they may present the beginnings of good ideas without much follow-through. It is the task of the good teacher to be as flexible as is reasonable in judging how students have fulfilled the requirements of the course, without being too “soft”—low expectations encourage poor performance—or too rigid.
2) Ability to communicate a passion for the subject matter and an interest in how people learn it. What are you convinced is most important about the subject matter you are teaching? Why should someone else care about it? Communicate your enthusiasm, your curiosity, your contagious excitement in whatever ways are natural to your temperament. The old-school model of the “jaded expert” who sits sphinx-like with awed disciples at his feet does not motivate most adult learners, unless the “jaded expert” has managed to create a cult of personality around himself. Communicate why this material is exciting! Help your students see why learning it should be a rewarding experience for your students. Of course, in order to do that, you will need to know what matters to your students as well as what is intrinsically fascinating about the subject matter.
Which of these roles fit your view of your own teaching? More than one may apply:
credentialed expert
midwife
leader of an expedition
learned companion
guardian of the discipline
guide
shepherd
boot-camp sergeant
motivational speaker
advocate for my students
facilitator
sage
Sometimes you can discern that your motivation may not be entirely about maximizing student learning. For example,
• You may find yourself thinking, “Look, I had to spend 5 hours a day studying maths. . .” or, “I stayed up all night to keep up with the reading in X class. . .” or “I had to learn to deal with Mr.Z’s withering comments in front of my peers . . . so darn it, these students should have to do that too!” This is a variation of the “I had to walk ten miles to school in the snow, so quit yer whining” kind of thinking. It’s not healthy. While holding students to rigorous expectations can be an important motivating factor for them, you are crossing the line if you think they should have to suffer as you suffered! Give students tips about effective study habits instead. Share the wisdom you’ve gained from your own student experiences.
• As a way of overcompensating for past experiences of demanding or inaccessible teachers in your own life, you may find yourself trying to be all things to all students, endlessly accessible and affirming even if they test the boundaries of appropriate behavior or ignore course expectations. Reflect on what roles are appropriate for you as teacher: while “advocate” is appropriate, “pastoral counselor,” “mother,” and “best friend” are not.
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