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    The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors
    The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors
    The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors
    Ebook218 pages3 hours

    The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors

    By Peter Filene

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    About this ebook

    Gathering concepts and techniques borrowed from outstanding college professors, The Joy of Teaching provides helpful guidance for new instructors developing and teaching their first college courses.

    Award-winning professor Peter Filene proposes that teaching should not be like a baseball game in which the instructor pitches ideas to students to see whether they hit or strike out. Ideally, he says, teaching should resemble a game of Frisbee in which the teacher invites students to catch ideas and pass them on.

    Rather than prescribe any single model for success, Filene lays out the advantages and disadvantages of various pedagogical strategies, inviting new teachers to make choices based on their own personalities, values, and goals. Filene tackles everything from syllabus writing and lecture planning to class discussions, grading, and teacher-student interactions outside the classroom. The book's down-to-earth, accessible style makes it appropriate for new teachers in all fields. Instructors in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences will all welcome its invaluable tips for successful teaching and learning.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe University of North Carolina Press
    Release dateNov 13, 2009
    ISBN9780807887639
    The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors
    Author

    Peter Filene

    Peter Filene is professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has earned six teaching awards. He is author of several books, including Him/Her/Self: Gender Identities in Modern America, In the Arms of Others: A Cultural History of the Right to Die, and Home and Away, a novel.

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    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Filene's book is an excellent overview of how to teach, but it seems to be more applicable to fields that are more subjective (i.e. humanities). I'm in chemistry, so the emphasis is more on understanding how to work through problems by applying concepts and the equations that express those concepts.
    • 4/5
      I think Peter Filene provides excellent guidance to new teachers, especially those who have had little practical experience teaching. Filene addresses some sensitive issues (communicating with students from different cultures, of different ages, etc). Practical coverage on how best to prepare, handle discussions, etc. Written well and economically. Compare to Ken Bain, James Lang, Linda Nilson.
    • 3/5
      A good guide for new faculty, but even as a starting teacher I would have appreciated a more rigorous discussion of pedagogical tools and theories.

    Book preview

    The Joy of Teaching - Peter Filene

    The Joy of Teaching

    The Joy of Teaching

    A Practical Guide for New College Instructors

    Peter Filene

    Foreword by Ken Bain

    The University of North Carolina Press

    Chapel Hill & London

    © 2005 Peter Filene

    All rights reserved

    Manufactured in the United States of America

    Set in Scala types by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

    This book was published with the assistance of the H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Fund of the University of North Carolina Press. A complete list of books published in the Lehman Series appears at the end of the book.

    This book was published with the assistance of the H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Fund of the University of North Carolina Press. A complete list of books published in the Lehman Series appears at the end of the book.

    The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

    Library of Congress

    Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Filene, Peter G.

    The joy of teaching : a practical guide for new college instructors / Peter Filene ; foreword by Ken Bain.

        p. cm.

    Includes bibliographical references and index.

    ISBN-13: 978-0-8078-2942-4 (cloth: alk. paper)

    ISBN-10: 0-8078-2942-0 (cloth: alk. paper)—

    ISBN-13: 978-0-8078-5603-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)

    ISBN-10: 0-8078-5603-7 (pbk.: alk. paper)

    1. College teaching—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. First year teachers—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

    LB2331.F493 2005

    378.1′2—dc22 2004019090

    cloth 09 08 07 06 5 4 3

    paper 09 08 07 06 5 4

    To my colleagues and students, past and present, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Contents

    Foreword by Ken Bain

    Acknowledgments

    Introduction

    PART I. PREMISES

    1 Understanding Yourself as a Teacher

    2 Understanding Your Students

    3 Defining Your Aims and Outcomes

    PART II. PRACTICES

    4 Constructing a Syllabus

    5 Lecturing

    6 Discussing

    7 Broadening the Learning Environment

    8 Evaluating and Grading

    PART III. EXTRACURRICULARS

    9 Relating to Students

    10 Teaching and Not Perishing

    Conclusion

    Notes

    If You Want to Learn More: A Selected, Annotated Bibliography

    Index

    Figures

    2.1 One-Minute Feedback Memo, 15

    4.1 Storyboard for a Syllabus, 40

    4.2 Heading for a Syllabus, 45

    5.1 Constructing a Lecture, 53

    6.1 How to Help a Discussion Succeed, 66

    8.1 Drawing Relationships Quiz, 96

    8.2 Criteria for a Successful Essay, 101

    8.3 Quantified Evaluation Form, 105

    Foreword Ken Bain

    When I started teaching U.S. political history in college in the 1960s, I knew my subject well, but I knew little about how to help other people learn. Before the first class meeting, the chair of the department gave me a list of the students who had enrolled in the course, told me the room number where the class would meet, and handed me a copy of the departmentally adopted textbook. That’s the only help I received. No one gave me any advice on how to set objectives, prepare a syllabus, teach the class, or assess my students’ work. My students and I suffered through the semester, constantly struggling to accommodate each other.

    Peter Filene has made the journey into college teaching much easier, more productive, and profoundly more enjoyable. He has crafted a succinct guide for new instructors (as he says, suggestive rather than exhaustive). To do so, he has drawn from his years of highly successful experience as a history professor at the University of North Carolina, mixed in important ideas from the literature on teaching and learning, and combined it all with the wisdom and practices of his colleagues. One of the distinctive features of this work is the use of illustrations from course materials in a variety of subjects. He offers a nuts-and-bolts book, providing readers with pithy and sage advice on topics as far-ranging as planning a course and surviving the diverse demands of a faculty appointment. He also asks his readers to confront two fundamental questions that may not pop into every professor’s mind but the answers to which can, research suggests, make an enormous difference: What does it mean to be a teacher? and How do you view your students and their needs?

    He demonstrates something I’ve long contended (see, for example, Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004]): we can learn much from the practices of outstanding college teachers. Filene is a great teacher who has familiarized himself with the vast body of research and theoretical literature on teaching and learning and can, therefore, conceptualize his own practice. Introductions to college teaching have been popping up like mushrooms in recent years, but precious few of them have come from people who have spent several decades successfully fostering their students’ learning. Few of those have blended their own insights with the best ideas from both the literature and colleagues.

    Filene has a wonderful way with words and a capacity to drive quickly to the heart of the matter. His crisp prose invites readers into a delicious conversation. Usually he doesn’t suggest a particular approach. Rather he raises the issue, lays out a variety of examples of what various professors have done—often quoting from syllabi or other course materials—and leaves the reader to make the final choice. He doesn’t try to cover everything about teaching and learning but lets readers get started with basic issues and helps them realize that there is much to know about human learning and how best to foster it. Finally, he offers an excellent annotated bibliography, a road map for future study.

    New teachers will find in this little volume a systematic introduction to college teaching. More experienced professors will find a host of productive new ideas that will help them improve their efforts. Every reader will find an engaging and friendly discussion and a wealth of stories that both inform and inspire. I’ve been teaching for many years, explored and contributed to the literature on college teaching, and directed teaching centers at Vanderbilt, Northwestern, and New York Universities, and I found in this book fresh ideas that gave me a renewed sense of the joy of teaching. I highly recommend it to you.

    Acknowledgments

    Just as teaching involves a dialogue with students, the writing of this book has engaged me in an extended dialogue with colleagues, students, friends, and editors, as well as the writings of scholars. They have enriched this book more than they know.

    Let me begin at the beginning. Thomas LeBien showed up in my office one afternoon and gave me the idea for this project. To put it mildly, I am grateful for his gift.

    Soon afterward, Ken Bain—director of the New York University Center for Teaching Excellence—volunteered some suggestions, launching an extraordinary two-year-long conversation between us about pedagogy. I value his wisdom as well as his modesty. The book would not be what it is without Ken’s contributions.

    Ed Neal, at the University of North Carolina Center for Teaching and Learning, gave me astute comments as I struggled to define the project and, throughout, responded generously to my queries.

    During my many years of teaching at the University of North Carolina, I have been nurtured and instructed by my fellow teachers—colleagues in the best sense of the word. My fellow historian and friend John Kasson offered his usual incisive, creative comments on an early draft of the manuscript at an early stage. More generally, John has encouraged and guided me as I wrestled with questions large and small, professional and personal.

    Michael Salemi, in the Economics Department, provided helpful critiques as well as materials. Sylvia Hoffert’s comments greatly improved one chapter. And I’m indebted to Michael Hunt for leading me to my splendid editors at the University of North Carolina Press, Chuck Grench, Amanda McMillan, and Paula Wald.

    I am also indebted to several anonymous readers for their patient, scrupulous reactions, as well as to those whom I can thank by name: Harold Berlak for his demanding comments on the initial proposal; and David Voelker, Robert Johnston, and Lee Warren for cogent critiques of the manuscript. Although I have resisted some of their suggestions, they have made the book immensely better.

    Halfway through the project, I had the good fortune of a semester’s fellowship at the University of North Carolina Institute for the Arts and Humanities. In our Tuesday afternoon colloquia, faculty from various departments animatedly exchanged constructive ideas. They broadened my intellectual horizons and made the book interdisciplinary. I want to thank Sahar Amer, Daniel Anderson, Bill Barney, Lucia Binotti, Philip Gura, Laura Janda, Susan Klebanow, Tim Marr, Peter Redfield, Rashmi Varma, Jessica Wolfe, Julia Wood, and the Institute’s director, Ruel Tyson.

    On every page of this book I have drawn upon innumerable conversations with my colleagues and students at the University of North Carolina, as well as the people at the Center for Teaching and Learning. In particular, I have learned immeasurably from the many faculty and graduate students with whom I have worked since 1980 in the History Department’s Committee on Teaching.

    Years ago, Gerhard Weinberg induced me to overcome my inhibitions and to teach graduate students. I’m so glad he did. Since then, I’ve regularly taught a graduate seminar on Designing an Undergraduate Course, the seedbed of this book. While writing the final chapters, I happened to be teaching the seminar again. The students served as an early audience and provided thoughtful evaluations. My thanks to Michael Allsep, Glen Feighery, David Holdzkom, Michael Kramer, Pamella Lach, Paul Quigley, Robert Richardson, Nancy Schoonmaker, Sarah Shurts, and Montgomery Wolf.

    Finally, and always, I thank Erica Rothman. As part of our endlessly interesting marriage, this book has been nourished by her wonderful intelligence, sensibility, and penchant for asking questions.

    The Joy of Teaching

    Introduction

    Welcome to your first year of teaching. This book will serve, I hope, as a travel guide to accompany you through the opportunities and quandaries that you’ll experience as you launch your career. We will spend most of the time on the challenges that will occupy most of your time: developing and teaching your courses. But we’ll also consider extracurricular matters that deal with how you relate to your students and colleagues.

    I won’t dictate the right answers. Not only do teachers vary in their goals, styles, and values, but they also work in diverse contexts, ranging from three-hundred-person courses to ten-person seminars and from research universities to community colleges. So this book will describe a variety of approaches to expand your options.

    Along the way I will cite empirical studies to help you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of various pedagogical strategies. While the research on human learning and teaching does not offer definitive answers, it does provide useful perspectives. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Rest assured, though. You are not expected to become a cognitive psychologist. Rather, I address you as a reflective professional, someone who is able to think deeply about your teaching and talk about it conceptually with colleagues.

    This is a short guidebook—suggestive rather than exhaustive. If you want to read more, consult the annotated bibliography. But I assume you have precious little time, even to read a book designed to help you improve your teaching and avoid wasting time. So each chapter will be not only succinct and practical, but encouraging as well as enjoyable.

    I also want to relieve you of the burden of getting it right the first time. Even experienced professors need three run-throughs to fashion a course to their satisfaction. The first time is trial and error, when you discover what’s possible and what’s not. (Think back to the first drafts of your graduate school seminar papers.) The second time you teach the course, you avoid the initial errors and false turns (like writing the second draft of that seminar paper). Then—and only then—you can take the content for granted and step back to ponder the structure and process. So the third rendition of the course is what you dreamed of: coherent, well-paced, incisive. And even then, ideally you will never stop finding new angles and additions.

    Does this mean you should resign yourself to two rounds of ineptitude? On the contrary. While the journey may be bumpy and erratic at times, you will have a special bond with your students because you, like them, will be taking the course for the first time. Together you’ll contend with the excitement and unpredictability (and yes, anxiety) of learning.

    This brings me to a fundamental pedagogical principle of the guidebook. When you teach, you are engaging in a relationship with your students. That’s perhaps too obvious to mention. On the other hand, as you sit down to plan your course, you may become so enthralled with organizing the content that you forget about the 30 or 130 people who will be looking at you that first day. After spending so many years of apprenticeship, you are probably impatient to stand at the lectern. You envision provocative lectures and probing discussions of the monographs that inspired you. But the vast majority of undergraduates are not taking your course to become historians, psychologists, philosophers, or whatever you are. Some enjoy history as presented by the History Channel. Some expect Psych 101 to help them achieve self-fulfillment; others are required to take the course.

    In this guidebook I will persistently remind you that teaching is a two-way process, what education scholars call dialogic. An instructor talks, but what do his or her students hear and understand? Teaching is only as successful as the learning it produces. Indeed, the teaching/learning relationship is not simply dialogic, between professor and student, but polylogic, among students, too. They may learn from each other, or intimidate each other, but positively or negatively, tacitly or explicitly, they play their role in the pedagogical relationship. Together, students and professor interact with the other member of this process: namely, the subject matter.¹

    Please don’t misread me. In emphasizing this interactive process, I am not implying that students’ expectations and practices should determine your own. The purpose of teaching is not to satisfy consumers’ wishes or to find the lowest common denominator. Because learning involves venturing beyond what one already knows and believes, an effective teacher takes students out of their comfort zone. He or she challenges them with unsettling ideas, sets high standards, demands introspection and hard work—all the while, heeding how students are responding.

    In this three-way

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