Tips for Teaching Undergraduate Courses

September 25, 2017

Whether it’s your first day teaching or you’ve been instructing for years, there’s always something new you can learn about becoming a better teacher. At this GrTS, some of USU’s top professors talked about how you can be the most effective teacher and mentor for your undergraduate students.

Each presenter shared their advice in the form of a teaching related thought (or “something to think about”), a problem and accompanying solution and a strategy related to college teaching. Following the presentations at both the morning and evening session, there was a Q&A panel.

Watch The Training

Something to think about

Motivate students with the M.U.S.I.C. model

Beth MacDonald, from the Department of Teacher Education and Leadership, explained that she uses something called the M.U.S.I.C. model to keep her students engaged and motivated. M.U.S.I.C. is an acronym for eMpowerment, a sense of Usefulness, a sense of Success, perceived Interest and a sense of Caring.

Some examples Beth gave of implementing this strategy are:

• eMpower students by giving them a couple of choices, but not so many that they feel overwhelmed.
• Teach Useful information and relate information to their lives.
• Plan content that is not easy but is also not frustrating, allowing an optimal level of effort that leads to Success.
• Make lessons Interesting, such as in the video she shared, “For the Love of Physics” (25:06 – 27:50)
• Ensure students know you Care by individualizing your communication with them, such as emailing to check in with a student who is exhibiting atypical behaviors.

Understand that teaching methods change

Bradley Davidson, from the Department of Chemistry, shared his experiences with the ways he has had to adapt his methods over his many years of teaching. He stated, “The way you teach now is not how you will teach in the future.”

One clear example of this is the transition from chalkboards to whiteboards to tablets and screens that Brad has witnessed throughout his career, but the principle of monitoring teaching methods and adapting to changing times is important throughout all of your practices.

Accept that you will never be the perfect professor for everyone

Andrew Kulmatiski, from the Department of Wildland Resources, explained that no matter how hard you try to please everyone, people are too individual for that to ever work.

He stressed that each class is going to have a completely different atmosphere dependent on the students, and that that’s okay. In a story he shared, Andrew had two identical courses, but with different students in each one. Even though he taught them both the exact same way, one had very high reviews, and the other had poor reviews. “You can’t always control the dynamic of the class,” he said, encouraging aspiring teachers to accept that.

Andrew also said that everyone has to start out at the beginning, and that teaching methods will improve over time. “It’s a craft you have to practice.”

Treat freshmen like 1st graders

Susan Cogan, from the History Department, explained that although new college students are no longer children, many face a lot of the same challenges as first graders, such as:

• They are away from home for the first time.
• They are reconfiguring their support structures.
• They are learning a new way to learn, which is hard. It’s like weightlifting for their brains.
• They have to make a lot of choices, some of which will be bad.
• They are in a new stage of their life, which is both exciting and scary.

Susan said that like first graders, freshmen should be treated with both gentleness and firmness, and especially compassion. Don’t let them take advantage of you, but give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s helpful for them, and much less stressful for you.

Learn how to teach by watching people teach

Christine Cooper-Rompato, from the English Department, passed out a slip of paper to each attendee that read:

“When making an axe handle
the pattern is not far off.”

(Gary Sayder, quoting Ezra Pound)

Christine explained that she has been carrying this poem around since she was a graduate student and that it reminds her that, like with the craft of creating an axe, new teachers can follow the pattern of those who have taught before. You do not need to reinvent the art of teaching.

Each year, Christine watches 4-5 other teachers to see what they do, and then tries to incorporate their strategies into her own teaching.

Remember that your students are not similar to you

Scott Bates, from the Psychology Department and the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, shared a key part of his teaching philosophy, which is that the students you teach will not be younger versions of yourself.

Scott shared some statistics about students in a general education undergraduate class, stating that less than half of those students will complete their undergraduate degree, about 1.5% will get a degree in the subject of the class, and less than 1% will go on to graduate school. Less than 1% of your class is going to even be that similar to you, let alone the other variables involved in learning.

With that in mind, Scott encouraged new teachers to consider that things are not going to come as easily to their students. Your subject is something that you like and that you’re good at, and that’s not going to be true for most of your students.

Scott also stressed the importance of teaching general education courses not with the idea of preparing them for other classes in that field, but with the idea of preparing them for their lives. One example of this is that in his early Psychology classes, Scott would only teach a small portion of time about things like Dissociative Identity Disorder and Schizophrenia, but spent a lot of time on things like depression, anxiety, coping mechanisms, and good parenting.

A Problem and A Solution

You might not always have time to answer emails right away

Problem: Grad school is a busy time, and you won’t always have time to answer students’ emails immediately. Ignoring an email can leave a student feeling uncertain and stressed, and may end with the email being forgotten.

Solution: Beth MacDonald recommends that you respond immediately with a brief message stating that you don’t have time to answer their questions right then. Give them a time by which you will respond, so that they don’t have to worry about it. This will keep you from forgetting (they’ll remind you if you do!) and helps them to feel cared for.

Another tip Beth shared was to add a little bit more into your syllabus than you think you will need, because students will appreciate you taking some out, but they won’t appreciate you putting more work in. You can also give them a sense of empowerment by allowing them to choose which of several options you are going to remove.

New technology always has problems

Problem: Whenever you adopt a new technology into your teaching, it will always come with problems. You don’t want to be left without your tools and feeling stupid in front of your class.

Solution: Take technology into your own hands. Don’t rely on I.T. to come and fix things for you; make sure you are capable of doing it yourself. Brad Davidson does this by putting all of his slides onto a tablet that he can plug in to any computer and project in front of the class. This also lets him write on his slides during class as things come up in the discussion!

Exams are stressful

Problem: Exams are important but often incredibly stressful for students.

Solution: They don’t have to be. Andrew Kulmatiski said that you can reduce a lot of that stress by using creative teaching strategies. He shared how he will give students a list of all of the questions that might be on the exam. This takes away a lot of their anxiety about the test and helps them prepare. It means they had to study extensively to learn the material and be prepared, and he always puts a much longer list of questions than just those that are on the test. It works out best for everyone!

Students don't know how to engage.

Problem: Young students haven’t all yet learned how college works and why it matters to them. They don’t know how to engage in classes.

Solution: Susan Cogan says you should explain to your students why this course is relevant – not just in the first class, but over and over again in different ways. Help tune them in to each lesson. Try to answer the questions:

• Why this class?
• Why this knowledge?
• How will this skillset contribute to my future?

Susan also said she motivates her students by “believing in them no matter how hard they try to prove me wrong.”

Everyone has pet peeves.

Problem: It’s easy to get angry at certain things students do, like using cell phones during class.

Solution: Christine Cooper-Rompato suggests finding a way to turn that negative thing into a positive thing. She explained that because she hated cell phone usage in class, she told her students that if she ever saw them on their phones of if they rang during class, they had to bring a snack for everyone the next day. That way, students were discouraged from using their phones, but if they did, it would still lead to a positive experience for everyone.

Another example Christine shared was that she was sick of students coming in late to class, so she started having students take a short, easy quiz at the beginning of each class. If they came in late, they wouldn’t be able to get the points for the quiz.

It's hard for students to pay attention

Problem: It’s difficult to keep students’ attention for 50 or 75 minutes at a time.

Solution: Scott Bates says variability is key to keeping students’ attention. Move around the room. Change the volume of your voice. If there are people talking, go and stand next to them while you continue teaching, and they will naturally stop talking.

Teaching Strategies

Always have a backup plan

Beth MacDonald understands that things go wrong in the classroom, especially when it comes to technology. It’s always best to have a backup plan for if your video doesn’t play, your materials break or in some way your lesson plan will not be possible. Knowing what you will do when things fail is going to take away a lot of stress.

See exams as more than a necessary evil

Brad acknowledged that exams are necessary and important, but they can be frustrating. He suggests finding ways to help students engage with them better and learn more.

One strategy Brad used was to allow the students to take the test a second time – without knowing how they did the first time. For the second run-through, students can take the test home, use their textbooks, and discuss the questions with each other. He then averages the two scores. This allows students to improve their scores, facilitates discussion and learning, but doesn’t trivialize the test. Brad shared how excited he was the first time he saw groups of students debating the questions in the hallway and how much it helped them to learn.

Keep it real

Andrew Kulmatiski says teaching isn’t about facts anymore; people can Google anything. Instead, he suggests you focus on teaching problem-solving.

One way that Andrew does this is by giving students situations that can’t be solved with facts. For example, he will give students problems like, “You have five minutes to figure out how many leaves are on that tree outside the window.” Then, he would ask, “Okay, how would you do it if you had 2 days to do it? How would you do it if you had 10 days to do it?”

Write down your successes and failures.

Susan Cogan shared her experience with keeping track of her progress and plans as a teacher. After every class period, she writes down what worked from that lesson and what didn’t. This makes it easier to keep track of, since it’s difficult to remember everything the next semester when you’re working on your syllabus.

Discover your teaching philosophy

Susan Cogan and Scott Bates both stressed the importance of determining your teaching philosophy.

Scott Bates said that being aware of your teaching philosophy will make teaching much easier, because it will guide your decisions.

Susan explained that a teaching philosophy is very personal and can’t be a copy of someone else’s. “It’s a process,” she said. You’ll never stop learning and adapting your teaching philosophy.

Susan also said it’s important to bring your whole self into the classroom. Just like you can’t copy someone else’s philosophy, you shouldn’t try to copy their teaching style. Use your humor and personality in your classes. If you’re the kind of person who would wear a King Tut hat to class to illustrate a point, like she did, you should do it.

Q&A

How do I teach with confidence despite not knowing every single fact about my subject?

Andrew Kulmatiski: “One secret to teaching is you only have to be a day ahead. Keep them busy and they’ll be focused on what you’re teaching that day.”
Andrew spends 80% of his preparation time thinking about what questions could be asked and how to answer them all the way back to first principles. This helps him to feel confident.

Brad Davidson: “You have to prioritize. You want to be a good teacher, but you also need to do well in your classes and focus on research. You have to prioritize these things.”

Scott Bates: “Once you’ve taught once, you’ve heard the questions. You need practice and experience.”

Brad:  “Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know and you’ll bring back an answer next time. Don’t try to fake it.”

Susan Cogan: “Write down the questions so you don’t forget to come back to them.” “You might not know the answer, but you know where to find it.”

How much curriculum development did you do during grad school? How involved were professors?

Beth MacDonald: “I was given the book and they said go. Make it your own.”

Susan Cogan: “It’s hard to teach someone else’s course. I had to do it once and I scrapped it halfway through.”

Brad Davidson: “In Chemistry, you are told exactly what to do. It’s rare for a student to teach a course.”

How do you deal with students that just want the A or aren't motivated to get a good grade?

Beth MacDonald: “Help them understand what they’re gaining from these challenges. Connect stories to ideas, create a path between topics and situations so everything is connected.”

Do you have any strategies for online teaching?

Scott Bates: “If you think about the M.U.S.I.C. thing, it maps on in the same way. For example, ‘caring.’ How do you demonstrate caring through a screen? How can they get to know you through a screen?”
Beth MacDonald: “I think discussion forums help with that, as long as you make it manageable for yourself. You don’t want the students to feel ignored. One way to do that might be to put them in virtual groups.”

Christine Cooper-Rompato: “CIDI, the Center for Innovative Design, will evaluate your online course for you at any point in that process. They helped me a lot with accessibility issues.”

Brad Davidson: “I’ve been teaching an online chemistry class for five years, and what I find challenging is that in the beginning, everybody is so optimistic. They’re all so excited, they want to learn this. But it’s such a challenge for them in that online environment to stay disciplined and stay on top of it. And so then we do an exam, and then we do another exam, and they don’t do as well as they hoped, and gradually they’re all kind of fading away. It’s really hard to keep them going the entire time. That’s what I keep trying to figure out – what I can do. I did have a couple of fun things. I had some discussion boards where I didn’t really target so much content in my class, but I targeted things like ‘What is science? What is good science? What is fake science? What’s pseudoscience? How do we judge what we read? How do we make decisions on sources?’ I thought that this was so important in this day and age. It was kind of a peripheral discussion but I think I asked them ‘Tell me something you’ve seen recently that was interesting in science’ and then they went out and dug stuff up and they posted a real diversity of interesting topics. That part of it was really fun, but it wasn’t the main content.”

What resources do you use to develop your courses?

Beth MacDonald: “I draw from conversations and conferences. I was part of something called a STAR group – Service Teaching and Research – in math education, where early faculty members got together and developed folders of resources for teaching and research and discussions. I draw from my colleagues more than anything.”

Christine Cooper-Rompato: “I think that’s where the axe handle comes in again. There’s probably something that looks like the course you want to teach. Talk with a person who’s taught it before – ‘What would you change about it and how did you do it?’ It’s really rare that I’ve ever had to do something like that from scratch, because there’s always somebody that’s done it before.”

Beth: “You can also send your syllabi out for review, just informally to other professors or instructors that you respect in your field. Request ideas, thoughts, changes. That’s really informative and gives insight into how you can redesign certain structures or how to use resources in unique ways.”

Scott Bates: “There are a lot of resources in some disciplines for how to teach any kind of content. I get content from everywhere. I get content from Reddit – this is my excuse to read Reddit. I get content from the news and the stuff that comes across my desk. I get content in here, and I try to capture that and build it over time.”

What are your thoughts on testing methods?

• Use the testing center to find questions that have students actively choose their answers rather than just coming up with your own multiple choice test. This way you can get important, useful data on the questions you are using.
• Have the students write the exam the day before the exam so that they can choose the questions. Its more like a take home than in class exam.
• Have a rubric so that you and your TAs can stay consistent from student to student.

What are methods you use to choose test questions?

• Build a pool of questions that you can take from and add to.
• Have students write down questions that they think they should be able to answer by the end of the course.
• Don’t use questions like “which one of these is not true” on multiple choice.
• If most of your students get a question wrong, throw it out. You will learn over time what kind of test questions work the best.
• Use a test bank from a control site. Its easier to see good or bad questions rather than come up with your own.
• Balance your test with fact questions and application questions, with an equal amount of questions on the sections you went through in class.
• Think about what type of question will best suite the information you are testing on.
• Remind students of the objectives that you are trying to obtain through the class and try to use the test to enforce them.

Any closing thoughts?

• Have fun with your students.
• Students are going to ask you about the larger questions of life. There are only a few of them that will go on to grad school and most of them will only remember what you taught them about anxiety or pressure and so you might be surprised in how you serve them.