How to Become the Best College Instructor

1. How to Become the Best College Instructor Here is what the best instructors do in the classroom: 1) create a natural, fluid learning environment guided by critical, reflective thinking in their review of material 2) compel students to confront intriguing issues and concepts in the discipline 3) encourage students to rethink their assumptions, counterproductive biases 4) they engage students: create a learning environment guided by what they want their students to do intellectually; develop habits of the heart and mind; disciplined mind. How do the best instructors treat their students? 1) they treat their students with respect and trust, students must be able to assert you can be trusted 2) they believe their students are seriously interested in learning 3) they understand the value of having an attitude of openness 4) they openly share their own awe and challenges in the discipline 5) create a learning environment that is supportive and safe to examine issues

2. Guiding Principles As instructors we must appreciate that although we know and can transmit content to students, the greater task is to understand that knowledge is constructed and not simply given to students. What implications does this pose for how you can modify how you teach? * Students enter class with established mental models * The mental models are constructed based on sensory material previously learned * Students use their existing/current mental models to comprehend what you’re presenting * The challenge for the instructor is to show students how they can modify/construct new mental models to guide how they think about issues. The Ultimate Challenge: How to motivate students to change their mental models. 1) The instructor needs to create a learning environment where students see how their model or paradigm (theory) will not accurately (reliably) predict an outcome. 2) The instructor needs to model for students how to ask the questions; ideally how students can learn to ask questions that ultimately reveals they are taking control of their learning.

3. Focusing Student Attention The best instructors open class with a provocative question or statement so students focus their attention on a significant issue, concept or assumption they may ignore. The instructor should select a story, parable or aphorism that has students ask: What implications does this lesson have for how I perform my work or perceive this issue otherwise? *this exercise requires students to exercise their analytic, abstract and reasoning skills * invariably, by completing this exercise, students will appreciate that some concepts and theories in the discipline are not immutable facts to be memorized but are contextual and relative. Instructors follow this up in the next class by asking students to bring in an aphorism, parable or story of their own from research they do. Remember: outstanding instructors will identify something unique in each student and allow them to make their special, authentic contribution to the learning environment that no one else can make. As the instructor, you need to convey a trust in your student’s abilities to make unique contributions.

4. Here’s what you need to demonstrate in class to have your students learn: 1) The right attitude 2) Faith in your students’ abilities to achieve, grow and become outstanding critical thinkers. 3) A willingness and demonstrated actions that conveys to students you take their learning very seriously and want them to take control and be self-directed in their learning process. Here’s what we know about learning: * Mental models shape how we think, feel and act * Students can modify their mental models to change how they think about things * Learning is more than accumulating information * Learning will impact everything you do in life.

5. You want your students to develop habits of the mind and heart sufficient enough to foster reasoning abilities to challenge central issues and questions raised in the discipline they are studying. Students Need to Make these Reasoning Abilities Habits of the Mind Students need to ask: What do I know? How do I know this? Is the evidence strong or weak? Students recognizing if there are gaps in information? If there are– how are they filled? Can I live with uncertainty and ambiguity? How long am I willing to go without the sufficient information? Students making a distinction between mere observation and inference, between fact and conjecture. Students understand that words are symbols for ideas and what this means. Students appreciating the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning: * going from particular to general * going from general to particular Begin with generalizations and work toward complexity and specifics. * Under what conditions is it favorable or more valid to arrive at explanations using inductive or deductive reasoning? * In the end--- students must be asked to consider the implications of their reasoning and conclusions. * Students must learn the difference between evidence and conclusions, weak and strong evidence, how and when to ask questions about types of evidence, assumptions and the implications raised by conclusions.

6. So --- how do you create a natural, critical learning environment? You can ask: How do we know anything for sure? Some instructors hardly ask questions and simply give students answers. Do you ever tell stories, offer parables of aphorisms about human discovery? Is science a process of discovery or a book of facts? What questions now remain in your mind? We need to engage students; to encourage and have them compare concepts, evaluate, analyze and synthesize; decide under what conditions to use a certain theory or concept to understand why events occur; to understand the implications of their application of concepts. In the end: teaching is not a performance or acting ---- but a conversation. The best instructors don’t simply review the chapter but ask intriguing and provocative questions about the material read. The instructor guides a discussion about how concepts and principles in the reading could be applied to a workplace context and what implications might emerge as a result. In other words------ what are the implications if you accept this interpretation, solution or approach? What else do we need to know before we can confirm or reject this theory? What is left unanswered?