Thinking About Teaching & Learning

3. Thinking About Teaching & Learning I believe that people who teach college want to be as effective as possible. For something as complex and unpredictable as teaching, we would do well to think about teaching, read about teaching, and talk about teaching reflectively, honestly, and seriously. Thinking About Teaching & Learning (1999), Robert Leamnson

4. To Build a Better Teacher Education has been susceptible to waves of goofy ideas down through the years, but it has been my observation that teachers do not originate these fads. To Build a Better Teacher (2004), Roger Gray Holland

5. If I Wanted To Study . . . “Bottom line,” the student said, “is that I like your old way of teaching much better, when you explained everything in detail for us. If I’d wanted to study, I would have gone to a real college, not a two-year school like this.” His four companions all nodded in agreement. “If I Wanted to Study, I Would Have Gone to a Real College” Thought & Action (Winter 2004), Tony R. Kuphaldt

6. Discussion Questions 1) Do you agree with the author that teaching first-year students is becoming more difficult? 2) Discuss the following: “most first-year students do not know how to listen well, or make notes on what they hear, to read with comprehension, or to write referentially about the real world.” 3) Discuss the following: “[That] the students are the best arbiters of their academic needs is highly questionable. Most students have goals, but these are usually long-term and nebulous, and are better described as wishes for the future.” 4) Discuss the following: “Teaching first-year students is so different from teaching the more experienced, that we need to develop an explicit philosophy or set of beliefs for teaching the first-year student.”