Volume 1 • Issue 4 • August 2002
An International Forum for Innovative Teaching
CONTENTS
1 Commentary
Ray M. Johns, Ph.D.
3 The Imagine Project
Stan Kajs, Ph.D.
4 Walls of Misconceptions:
What Students Bring to
Every Classroom
Leah Savion, Ph.D.
6 One Approach to
Reducing Plagiarism
Mary Buhr, Ph.D.
8 The Promises We Make
Keith J. Conners, Ph.D.
Stacie F. Siers, M.Ed.
10 Feminist Pedagogy Meets
WebCT: Bringing
Consciousness-Raising
to a Women’s and Gender
Studies Course
Mary K. Walstrom, Ph.D.
12 Meet the Authors
• • • • • • • • • • •
C
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Before Critical Thinking
Comes Independent
Thinking: The Special
Educational Challenge of
Teaching Students to Think
Ray M. Johns, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
Hagerstown Community College
Fulbright Fellow, 2000-2001
Critical thinking is characteristic of teaching
and learning economics. Economics is about
making choices and evaluating the costs of
those choices, whether they are actual monetary costs or the opportunity cost of benefits
given up. Much of learning in economics is
to understand and to use various principles to
evaluate a decision. That decision could be a
consumption choice, a production choice, or
a choice of government policies to accomplish
a given end.
I recently participated in a curricula
development conference for the teaching of
economics in Ukraine that included American,
German, and British economists. A British
economist told the assembled professors very
candidly that it was critically important that
they train their students to conduct analyses
of government policy. With their economy
in transition, the Ukrainian government needs
economists who can give them useful answers
about the positive and the negative impacts of
policy decisions. They also need those economists who can help to develop the best policies
to accomplish the difficult tasks confronting
them in privatization, international trade, education, health care, and pension reform. Having
worked in central and Eastern Europe for the
past ten years, I knew that many of the people
at the conference did not understand him. The
reason for this lack of understanding is a cultural
fault line left over from the Soviet regime that
must be bridged before critical thinking can
take place. First they have to be taught to think.
Unlike students in the West, those of the former
Soviet Union do not have the culture to think
independently and critically.
Thinking is second nature to Americans.
From childhood, we are encouraged to “think
about it” and “use your head” and criticized
with terms such as “blockhead,” “airhead,”
“brain dead,” and “the lights are on, but no
one is home.” Few of us would ever have the
occasion to look up the definition of “think.”
Actually, it is a rather complicated definition
with many processes. To think means being
able arrange ideas in a pattern of relationships,
to turn something over in the mind, to reason,
to have an opinion, to remember, to conceive,
to create, and to contemplate.
So what is difficult about thinking? We
simply assume people just do it. Not necessarily.
People in the former Soviet Union were not
allowed to think independently. In fact, they
were subjected to severe forms of behavior
modification for doing so. Instead of thinking,
there was the “official truth” for everything,
including, history, geography, art, music, film
and economics. Remembering the wrong thing,
continued on pg. 2 .........
Before Critical Thinking
continued from pg. 1 ..........
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having a deviant opinion, or developing an
interest in alternative explanations of some
phenomena could very well side-line one’s
career or maybe even cause one to disappear.
Research by the Russian economist Nikolai
Kondratieff indicated that grain prices fluctuated in long cycles. Wrong answer! According
to the official Party truth, in the past, prices
were set by greedy capitalists and were now
properly set by the government. Kondratieff
disappeared in a Siberian slave labor camp in
the 1930’s. But his plight was not an exceptional
situation. It was the rule and endemic to all of
Soviet society. No fact or opinion was too large
or too small to be by-passed by the process of
standardized “truth.”
As a teacher in Ukraine in 2000-2001, I
encountered this “official truth.” Ukrainian
officials had not planned for me to teach anything and were somewhat confused when I
insisted that the Fulbright program sent me
there to teach. The basic problem was that they
did not want any new ideas or methods of
teaching in their system. Nothing really had
changed since the Soviet regime. They have
rigid curricula of all required courses and a
standard teaching method of lecture and drill
and lecture and drill. Teachers read the lecture
from the same yellowed, dog-eared papers
they have used for twenty years. In the subsequent class, the teacher calls on students who
snap to attention and parrot back what they
had heard during a previous lecture. There is
no thinking, just memorization of the truth according to the authorities. It is possible that
this particular method functioned very well
for engineering, mathematics, and the sciences,
but it was certainly inappropriate for business
administration, the humanities, and the social
sciences. These subjects require interaction
between both the teacher and the student and
a constant revision of the course content and
the curricula. I was told that once I tried their
system of lecture and drill, I would like it and
find it to be a superior way to teach. I was
VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 4
informed that I could use no other method
of teaching. As a typical American, I agreed
with them but then taught courses the way I
thought was most effective.
The centrally dictated curricula and ways
of teaching methods were then matched by
a collective learning mentality on the part of
the students. They were put in fixed groups
and went from one required class to another
for the entire five-year program. Students had
as many as eight different classes each semester. There was a high absence rate as the
weak or lazy students became parasites on the
good ones, copying their notes as well as their
answers during exams. Cheating, by Western
standards,was blatant, but it was not a problem
by their standards. Learning the official truth
was a collective effort on the part of the group,
and they were all expected to have the same
ideas. For written assignments, it was not uncommon for every one to hand in the same
response, word for word. On one exam, I asked
them for the four parts of an enterprise budget,
and they all gave the correct answer. They had
memorized the list from the lecture. On the
same exam, I gave them a list of costs and
income and asked them to put them in the
proper place in that four-part enterprise budget
and to do the arithmetic. They left it blank.
Reasoning about what was a fixed cost, a
variable cost, income, or profit was beyond
the limits of their ability to memorize. It required thinking. Not very complicated thinking
by our standards, but thinking, nonetheless.
Students in the West may be resistant to
learning and applying critical thinking skills,
but they live in a culture that encourages and
even requires them to think and to think independently and to think critically. As radical
as it seems, we may have gone to the other
extreme and have encouraged our students
to think independently to the point of intellectual anarchy. They may be so mentally
undisciplined or perhaps so “free-thinking”
that they rebel against the perceived authority
of the the professor dispensing the accumulated
continued on pg. 3...........
2
Before Critical Thinking
continued from pg. 2 ..........
knowledge of the past. Perhaps this is the
reason Western students respond better to
discussion methods of learning where the
teacher is merely a facilitator of the exchange of contemporary opinion and not
an authority figure dispensing the “body
of truth.”
Perhaps we can find an important
lesson in this Ukrainian experience for
Western teachers. Could it be that there is
a continuum of thinking styles? It could
range from the mechanical acceptance of
accumulated knowledge without contemplation at one extreme to the chaotic rejection
of the same and the substitution of uninformed opinion at the other. At one end
are the robot students who are confused
when asked to think. At the other extreme
are the “touchy-feely” students who become
hostile and discouraged when confronted
with the challenge of disciplined learning.
Perhaps this challenge is the reason so
many of our students begin their classroom
responses with “I feel . . .” and “I think . . .”
and with the challenge to the teacher that
“My opinion is as good as yours.” They
want the college classroom to be a freespirit “rap session” with no regard for
accumulated truth. If there is a lesson to
be learned, perhaps it is one of understanding the threat to learning from either
extreme and seeking teaching methods
that move students toward the balance
of mental discipline combined with the
ability to think.
•••••••••••••••
October Commentary
Deborah Frazier, Vice Chancellor of Academic
Affairs, and Jennifer Methvin, Instructor of
English, from the University of Arkansas
Community College at Batesville are the
authors of the October Commentary entitled
“Enthusiasm Conquers the Killjoys: A Way
to Enhance Student Learning.”
The Successful Professor™
The Imagine Project
Stan Kajs, Ph.D., TSP Editor
Synthesis and evaluation are the two
highest levels of learning in Benjamin
Bloom’s taxonomy. Synthesis involves
integrating learned material into a creative
and coherent whole. Evaluation requires
discriminating among ideas and making
decisions based on logic and evidence.
Several years ago, in an effort to engage
my students more in their own learning,
I experimented with an assignment in my
introduction to humanities course. My
intent was to provide my students with
an engaging opportunity to demonstrate
their knowledge of course material and
their ability to synthesize and evaluate
course knowledge in a creative way. The
result was the Imagine Project. Building
upon their acquired knowledge, students
compose a document envisioning the
humanities in the next 50 to 100 years.
Because the prerequisite knowledge
to begin the Imagine Project is extensive
and the time to complete it is limited, I
make the assignment a group project.
During the third week of the course, when
enrollment stabilizes, I assign four or five
students to each group and then discuss
with them the assignment handout in detail.
Because I provide them with little class
time to meet, they plan their strategy and
assemble their project outside of class,
generally through e-mail.
Content. In the future era they envision,
the members of each group include an
coherent description and explanation of
the humanities, including all the following
as appropriate: political thought, theology,
music, philosophy, literature, architecture,
art, sculpture, painting, dance, theatre,
and film. Generally, each student selects
two or three to present. In their written,
work, they explain the origin, substance,
and meaning of their works—all of which
VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 4
“Building upon their acquired
knowledge, students compose
a document envisioning the
humanities in the next
50 to 100 years.”
must have some source in the course
material they studied. For example, a
building in their future world may be an
advanced form or a variation of a previous
style, or it may be a reactionary style. They
must show the relationship of their choices
of the humanities with preceding ones. The
assignment also requires students to do
research, principally to visit websites
featuring futures theories and predictions.
Format. I ask students to write their
project as chapter 16 of their fifteen-chapter
textbook. In composing their chapter,
they are required to follow the format
and style of their textbook: double columns
of text, appropriate headings, and illustrations with titles. They are also to include
an attractive cover page.
Presentation. During the final week
of class before final examinations, each
group makes a presentation of 20 to 30
minutes to the other members of the class.
The more creative groups of students
have made PowerPoint presentations.
Some have even dressed for the occasion
in their fashions of the future. As each
group presents, the copy of their chapter
circulates among the audience. After the
presentation, members of the audience,
including the professor, may ask questions.
The Question/Answer Session motivates
the students of a group to prepare their
material thoroughly.
Evaluation. I evaluate each group’s
final product on the quality of thought and
continued on pg. 4..........
3
The Imagine Project
continued from pg. 3 ..........
insight and the care and maturity of preparation. Because some students excel
others in the same group, I award individual
and group grades, averaging the two, but
giving more weight to the individual performance.
Conclusion. For the most part, the
students have displayed ingenuity and
thoughtfulness in their Imagine Projects.
Many of my students view the world at
the beginning of the 21st century as very
seriously disordered, though redeemable.
They present a faith in the human spirit
to renew damaged cultural and global
relationships to build a better future. In
their descriptions of the humanities in the
mid-21st century, most creatively build
upon the material in their textbook in order
to develop variations of the fine arts that
convince me that the Imagine Project is a
worthwhile assignment. The concept of
the project may be used in disciplines
other than the humanities. It can be adapted
for courses in business, technology, and
science.
•••••••••••••••
Article Contest Winner
Congratulations to Dr. Mary Buhr
who is the winner of our Article Contest
for Volume 1. Dr. Buhr is a professor
in the Department of Animal Poultry
Science at the University of Guelph,
in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The title
of her article, which appears in this
issue, is “One Approach to Reducing
Plagiarism.” Her prize is a laptop
computer.
Walls of Misconceptions:
What Students Bring to
Every Classroom
Leah Savion, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
lsavion@indiana.edu
• Do heavier objects fall faster than
lighter ones?
• Does the world consist of discrete
entities and events, and the role of
language is to put labels on them?
• Is the change of seasons a function
of the distance of the earth from the
sun?
• Does the process of evolution bring
species gradually closer to perfection?
• Can historical phenomenon be
attributed to a single event?
• Will a ball dropped from a moving
object fall straight down?
• Should the price of an item drop the
more of it you sell?
Affirmative answers to these questions
illustrate the power of theories that we
all develop from a very early age about
the physical world and other minds, about
the right, the fair, the normal and the good,
about the mental, the metaphysical, possible
worlds, free will, and about the effectiveness of formal education. These theories
provide a naïve framework of causal relations, patterns, meaningfulness and reliability.
The generation of such frameworks is an
essential evolutionary tool for ordering
life, for making reasonable predictions
about the future, and for enhancing the
sense of our control over the environment,
all of which are necessary for our survival.
Why do we develop pet theories?
The process of acquiring knowledge
starts, at the latest, soon after birth. Tiny
infants distinguish among forms, faces,
and visual auditory patterns; four-month
olds register surprise when an object
changes appearance after moving out of
sight; at six months they can tell groups
of three items from groups of four; and
within a couple of years they can learn
to talk, sing, joke, play, manipulate toys
and people, deceive, invent scenarios,
and engage in intricate social relations.
These bits of knowledge form the foundations for hypotheses about practically
everything around us, hypotheses that
develop with our experience and without
scrutiny into folk or conventional wisdom, scripts, popular beliefs, and frames
that we will give here the generic name
“pet theories.” These theories are the
inevitable result of three major forces:
human disposition, the world, and the
cognitive machinery employed by our
brains.
Human disposition consists of a
relentless search for patterns, order,
coherence, and meaning. We tend to use
our imagination as well as our personal
experiences to create hypotheses and
increase our explanatory and predictive
control.
continued on pg. 5.........
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4
Walls of Misconceptions
continued from pg. 4
The world presents itself to us in a
messy array of sense data that are incomplete, ambiguous, unrepresentative, and
unorganized.
Our mind, the tool we bring to bear
in attempting to exercise our dispositions
on that world, displays amazing computational abilities but is also limited by
storage space, involuntary search and
selection mechanisms, and by inferential
length and complexity. Our cognitive
machinery is tailored to accumulate a
great amount of information fast, often
at the expense of accuracy. To meet the
goal of coping with the huge amounts of
cognitive needs while economizing on the
heavy price of cognitive operations, our
brain uses heuristics (rather than algorithms) to simplify the information and
to fill up gaps when decisions are made
from uncertainty.
The use of cognitive heuristics, that
is, the “quick and dirty rules of thumb,”
is inevitably associated with the biases
that result when the heuristics meet their
workable boundaries and are not applicable any longer. Similarly, the price we
pay for the high utility, simplicity, and
generality of our pet theories are naïve
misconceptions, such as those listed at
the beginning of this article.
Pet theories are based on surface
features of the relevant concepts; they
are fragmented and often inconsistent;
they are built on principles that emerge
spontaneously, derived from personal experience, common sense, and intuitive
inferences. Pet theories are not normally
tested against scientific, social or logical
facts and are not subjected to metacognitive tests for detecting inconsistencies
or compatibility with other pet theories.
Pet theories are universal, complex, serviceable and durable, commonsensical,
The Successful Professor™
and robust, seemingly well organized,
partly correct and extremely resistant to
change in formal educational settings.
The resistance of pet theories and their
inevitable naïve misconceptions to change
even slightly creates a barrier to understanding the academically sanctioned
theories we impart in our classroom,
sometimes to the point of total ineffectiveness. Moreover, naïve misconceptions
tend to emerge after long periods of training
and education, even when the obstacles
they have initially generated seem to have
been overcome.
“Pet theories are universal,
and complex, serviceable and
durable, commonsensical, and
robust, seemingly
well organized, partly correct
and extremely
resistant to change in formal
educational settings.”
Why are people so resistant to change
their misconceptions ?
People cling to their own unexamined
theories not because they lack exposure
to the relevant evidence or because they
lack enough intelligence to alter them in
face of inconsistencies. They hold onto
these theories because they seem to be
consistent with their personal experience;
because they become intellectually attached to their elaborate views after years of
usage, small modifications and adaptations; and because these theories seem
to work in enough instances to warrant
continuous use.
This phenomenon of belief perseverance, that is, holding on to a belief even
after it has been explicitly discredited, is
not as irrational as it seems. Cognitive
VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 4
economy dictates some resistance to
changing conceptions that seem to do an
adequate job, even when the uncertainty
that has created them can be eliminated. A
holding on to a fairly good misconception
when faced with a formal conception that
is incompatible with our beliefs is not
necessarily an irrational behavior but, more
likely, a product of our need to economize
efforts whenever possible. Furthermore,
precision, accuracy, and complete knowledge
are rarely required for daily survival and
control. Knowledge does not have to be
certain, verifiable, or even a correct logical
consequent in order to be useful.
What happens when old meets new?
Pet theories exert such strong influence
that standard (even excellent) instruction
is often a waste of time altogether. We
tend not to abandon underlying concepts
and principles of our naïve theories even
when their incompatibility with academically accepted theories is made explicit.
School education does not seem to dissolve naïve misconceptions, which are
most likely to emerge unaltered after the
final exam. The interference of pet theories
with formal education is manifested in
one or more of the following ways:
• The new information is discarded
either wholly or partially.
• The new information is altered by
an interpretation that fits the naïve
conception.
• The new formal knowledge is
perceived as confined to what is
required in school, but not applicable
in daily life.
What can be done about pet theories?
Eradicating long-lived and seemingly
successful misconceptions and replacing
them with fundamentally different (and
often not intuitive) academic theories
continued on pg. 6 ..........
5
Walls of Misconceptions
continued from pg. 5
require understanding the origins and the
cognitive value of our pet theories and
require the careful development of subtle
and powerful cooperative devices for
mending, correcting, and adjusting them
with the acceptable body of knowledge.
The following is a suggested four-step
pedagogic path:
1. Understand the sources and the
necessary functions of pet theories. Share
that understanding with your students;
explain the intuitive value and rational
aspect of developing simplified conceptions
in the absence of scientific knowledge.
2. Identify and recognize the pet
theories relevant to your area. Recruit
your students’ help in articulating their
principles, methods of gathering informtion,
inferential mechanisms, heuristics and
applications.
3. Generate discussion (and possibly
a consensus) about the relevant pet theory
that results in identifying
• circumstances in which it is valid,
• domains of over-generalizations
or over-simplifications,
• the scope beyond which it becomes
irrelevant, and
• areas of direct conflict with the
academic theory.
4. Provide clear indications of how
to reconcile the academic with the preexisting beliefs by showing how to map
the new concepts and ideas onto the network
of the naïve conceptions made explicit.
Gilovich, Thomas: How Do We Know
What Isn’t So, The Free Press, 1991.
Hammer, David: “More than Misconceptions:
Multiple Perspectives on Student Knowledge
and Reasoning, and An Appropriate Role
for Educational Research.” American
Journal of Physics 64 (10) 1996, pp. 13161325.
Hansen, Edmund J.: “Creating Teachable
Moments and Making them Last,”
Innovative Higher Education Vol. 23
No.1 Fall 1998, pp.7-26.
Meyer, Debra K.: “Recognizing and
Changing Students’ Misconceptions,”
College Teaching Summer 1993, Vol. 41
#3, pp.104-109.
Redish, Edward F.: “The Implications
of Cognitive Studies for Teaching
Physics,” American Journal of Physics
62 (6) 1994, pp.796-803.
Vyse, Stuart A.: Believing In Magic:
The Psychology Of Superstition, Oxford
University Press, 1997.
•••••••••••••••
References
Brumby, Margaret N.: “Misconceptions
about the Concept of Natural Selection
by Medical Biology Students,” Science
Education 68 (4), 1984, pp. 493-503.
Mary M. Buhr, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Animal & Poultry Science
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON, Canada
mbuhr@uoguelph.ca
The Background
I teach reproductive biology to a class
of 50-60 fourth-year BSC students. All
students enter my class with little essaywriting experience because large class
sizes in their first three academic years
limit the number of written assignments.
Students in a 4th year course should be
able to write a cogent and well-reasoned
review of the scientific literature on a
topic with which they are familiar. Therefore, I always require each student to write
a paper of 800-1000 words in one of four
topic areas, due at the end of the semester.
They previously completed a major laboratory project on the same general topic.
On the first day of classes, I hand out
detailed written information on the course.
It clearly states that I follow the University’s
code of conduct regarding academic
integrity, and cites the specific pages of
the current year’s calendar containing
that code. The handout also says, Do not
risk losing everything you’ve worked so
hard for by cheating, copying, plagiarising,
etc. Talk to me and we will find a better
way.
Detailed instructions for the paper are
handed out closer to its due date. They state
that the students must cite a minimum of
eight sources, at least five of which should
be research papers (not review articles or
non-peer-reviewed Internet sources) from
scientific journals. I specify a journal whose
.
Gardner, Howard: The Unschooled Mind,
Basic Books, 1991.
The Successful Professor™
One Approach to
Reducing Plagiarism
continued on pg. 7..........
VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 4
6
Reducing Plagiarism
continued from pg. 6
referencing style should be followed, and
include the following statement: Never
copy exactly what is written in an article:
this is called plagiarism. State ideas in
your own words and cite the source of
the information. This provides an excellent
demonstration of your understanding of
the subject. If you absolutely must copy
from a source, put it in quotation marks
and clearly cite the source. A maximum of
one quote, consisting of no more than one
sentence, is allowed in a report.
The Problem
In 1999, the second time I offered the
course, I found 13 reports (class size
of 58 students) that contained at least
three sentences copied directly, without
quotation marks, from published papers
and two other reports with sections that
closely mimicked published sources. Wild
fluctuations in quality of phrasing were
my major clues. I verified each instance
by finding each source article and each
sentence—an onerous and time-consuming
task. Then I went to the Dean, the required
action within my faculty. A professor detecting academic misconduct takes the
evidence to the Dean, who reviews, investigates, and assigns penalties. This process
is intended to equalise penalties across
all departments in the faculty and to detect
repeat offenders.
The class was horrified when I told
them (never mentioning any names) that
plagiarism had been detected and that the
Dean would contact suspected individuals.
The Dean’s involvement sent an enormous
shockwave through my class that spread
to their friends and acquaintances.The
Dean agreed with all my findings. Of
the 13 true plagiarisers, none denied the
evidence; each admitted that the instructions had been very clear and that they
The Successful Professor™
knew they were breaking the rules. (One
amusing defence: “We were only allowed
to have one quote, and so, in order to follow
that instruction, I had to leave the quotation
marks off the others!”) Penalties for the
13 plagiarisers (the mimickers received
only a warning) were substantial. All lost
25% of their course grade, equivalent to
the total value of the major laboratory
project and the paper. Their names were
on record at the Dean’s office, and a second
incidence of academic misconduct would
result in more severe sanctions.
A Solution
Catching 25% of a 4th year class cheating
gave me two messages. First, there were
probably more that I hadn’t caught, and
second, senior students lack the tools and
experience to write in their own words.
I was determined to give my next
class tools to reduce misconduct and to
make my life easier. Anti-plagiarism software that I investigated dealt with paper
mills or duplication of a previously submitted paper—which were not my problem.
Furthermore, the software could not access
the journals my students were required
to source and did not address my desire
to teach the students how to say things
in their own words.
So I did two things differently. First,
I told the students what had happened
the previous year; second, I changed the
assignment slightly, requiring them to
select their topic early in the semester, and
incorporating two interim referencing
components. By mid-semester, they were
to submit a list (titles and authors) of 20
references pertinent to their topic. Then,
about two weeks before their reports were
due, they had to submit a list of 10 references with a two-sentence summary of
each, stating in their own words how
each reference was pertinent to their topic.
At least five of these 10 references had
to appear in their final report. The 20VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 4
reference list was intended to force them
to think about their report early in the
semester while the summaries were to
help them get to the heart of the papers’
relevance to them.
To my amazement, I caught three
students plagiarising their summaries.
Again I went to the Dean. I informed the
class, which again generated the same
horror. The Dean sagely pointed out that
this furore was in fact achieving one of
the goals of the referencing assignment:
reinforcing the importance of academic
integrity. The students were interviewed
and warned, and I was assigned the
responsibility of penalising them—a zero
on the small reference component. I
detected no plagiarism in any of the main
papers. The next time I offered the course,
I again informed the class and made topic
selection and reference submission due
even earlier. One student plagiarised
references with all the same fallout; again
I detected no plagiarism in their papers.
Of Interest
I have since done some reading on various
aspects of academic misconduct, and it
seems my experience is common. In no
particular order, the commonalities include
the following:
1. A range of 13-95% of students
admit to having cheated, with 35% being
the most commonly cited number (McCabe
and Trevino, 1993; J Higher Education
64: 522). The problem is of similar proportions in Canada (Mullens, 2000, University
Affairs 41: 22) and the USA. So my 25%
may be low.
2. Faculty members are very often
reluctant to report cheating (McCabe and
Trevino; Mullens, ibid). My faculty colleagues responded to my tale with surprise,
often coupled with ignorance of our
continued on pg. 8...........
7
Reducing Plagiarism
continued from pg. 7
institution’s rules (“You told the Dean?
Why?”), and some censured my actions
(“You’ll never stop it; so why bother?
You’ll only ruin the poor students’ lives.”)
Faculty reluctance to report plagiarism
also arises from the enormous number of
hours needed to detect and document the
offence and the psychological toll of the
whole depressing process. I hope that
journals with online formats will give bona
fide plagiarism search engines the access
needed to detect cheating in assignments
like mine. Administrators who want us to
uphold academic integrity must provide
the time, resources and recognition needed
for us to accomplish a good job. Mine have
recognised my efforts, but the workload
remains unchanged!
3. The better the student body knows
the rules and the more certain the punishment, the less likely is cheating (McCabe
and Trevino, ibid). In schools where strong
policies are not well advertised and enforced, individual professors can still
have major effects (McCabe et al., 1999;
J Higher Education 70:211). Plagiarism
in my course was common even when
I clearly stated the rules, but once the
students knew I was diligent at catching
cheaters and enforcing the rules, the incidence of misconduct plummeted.
4. Consistency, communication and
commitment are key. Students in my course
tell me repeatedly that the definition of
plagiarism differs from one professor to
the next, so they don’t know what is acceptable and what is not. Teachers must buy
into policies upholding academic honesty,
and those policies must be clearly communicated to and widely understood by
everyone on campus.
5. Students are more likely to cheat
when pressured by too much work and too
little time, such as a major report at the
The Successful Professor™
“Administrators who want
us to uphold academic
integrity must provide
the time, resources, and
recognition needed for us to
accomplish a good job.”
end of a semester. I couldn’t reschedule
the report because my students needed to
study the material and complete the lab
work before they could understand the
topics. But I could reschedule the assignment’s components so that not all the
work could be left to the end of the semester. Students are like many of us: driven
by deadlines. By dividing the major paper
into smaller assignments that forced the
students to begin their library work early,
they were better organised and less likely
to put a paper together at the last moment
using the “block, copy, and paste” technique.
Academic integrity is an issue of
increasing importance on many campuses.
We front-line faculty, can, without too
much difficulty, structure our teaching to
communicate the value we place on honest
hard work.
•••••••••••••••
The Promises We Make
Keith J. Conners, Ph.D.
Professor of Education
kjconners@salisbury.edu
Stacie F. Siers, M.Ed.
ssiers@wcboe.org
Salisbury University
Salisbury, Maryland
We all remember those anxious first
moments of a semester when we were
college students ourselves. Seated in a
classroom or lecture hall, we anticipate
the arrival of the professor, wondering
not just what the syllabus had in store
for us but what sort of person we would
be dealing with for 15 weeks or so. Would
it be someone who makes the subject
come alive? Would he or she have a real
passion for the subject, or would we be
going through the motions to “cover the
material”? Would it be someone approachable or would we feel intimidated by the
thought of one-on-one contact? Would it
be someone compassionate or someone
determined to make our lives as miserable
as possible in the name of “upholding the
integrity of the discipline”? How long would
it take to figure out what the professor was
all about?
Before Parker Palmer (1998) reminded
us about the interdependence of teachers
and students, college teaching guru Madeline
Hunter (1988) spoke about the importance
of the “feeling tone” in the classroom.
How we present ourselves to our students
does matter, and savvy college instructors
may do themselves and their students a
favor by addressing the teacher-student
relationship in positive language at the
outset.
continued on pg. 9...........
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8
The Promises We Make
continued from pg. 8
To this end, we present an approach
we have appropriated and adapted (that
is, stolen) from a colleague who teaches
in the public schools. Sharon Peterman
currently serves the teaching profession
in an elementary school in Wicomico
County, Maryland. For nearly 30 years
she has taught with distinction students
ranging from first grade to graduate school.
She begins every school year with a set
of promises written to fit the age of the
students she has in her class. These simple
declarative statements represent her commitment to her students, and they form
what she hopes will become a sort of
covenant as they learn together.
We know; it sounds corny. We had
to take a figurative deep breath before
creating our own set of promises and
showing it to a group of graduate students
the first night of class. But our promises
worked like a charm; we had a wonderful
class and received excellent feedback from
students in their course evaluations. Indeed,
several of our students—teachers themselves—reported that they had developed
a set of promises for use in their own
classes.
The bold print statements below are
what we now put on the overhead at the
start of every class we teach together. The
text that follows approximates our spoken
narrative as we elaborate.
We promise that . . .
. . . you will learn. First, we sincerely
believe you can learn. And we believe
we can teach. We will do anything we
can to help you succeed this semester,
in class and outside of class. We don’t
guarantee you will all earn A’s, but you
will learn.
. . . we will give you choices. One
look at the syllabus will show you that
The Successful Professor™
there are multiple options in our course
requirements, and we hope to provide you
with different ways to learn and a variety
of means to show us that you have.
. . . we will work as hard at teaching
this course as you do in taking it. We’ve
all had professors who go through the
motions and never commit the energy or
time necessary to match their students’
efforts. If you put hours into completing
assignments, you deserve a similar commitment on our part to prepare for class
and evaluate your work thoroughly.
. . . we will try to model effective
teaching strategies and ethical practices.
We are professional educators, and this
is a course for teachers. We’d be real
hypocrites if we failed to practice what
we preach.
. . . we will provide prompt, detailed
feedback on your work. Barring any
unforeseen calamities, we will return your
papers and exams by the next class period
with commentary and suggestions for
revision, if needed.
. . . we will not knowingly embarrass
you. Our evaluation of your work will
be kept confidential and we will respect
your dignity. We hope to have a good
time in class, but we will not do so at
your expense.
. . . we will remember that you have
a life. We assume that you probably work
for a living and that you have other academic, personal and family responsibilities
that compete with this class for your time
and energy. While we hope you can attend
every class and complete assignments
in a timely fashion, we will work with you
if circumstances prevent you from doing
so.
Inevitably, we sometimes fall a bit
short of fulfilling every intention inherent
in the promises we make. We’re human;
things happen. One semester, we had some
technical problems with our online support
site that delayed returning electronic submissions for a week or so. Another time
VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 4
we inadvertently embarrassed a student
with a comment made in class. But we
tried, and we believe our students cut us
some slack because we had made an honest
effort. Actually, we suspect that the specifics
of our promises are probably less crucial
than the fact that we are making an overt
statement of our commitment to our students.
We’re trying to say, in effect, “we’re in
this together and our investment in the class
will match yours . . . . we hope you have
a good experience this semester.”
As we look back on our own college
experiences as students, we can recall
some professors whose rigid course syllabi,
hostile demeanor and/or ominous comments
seemed to forge an implicit covenant of
distrust and antagonism. The promises
of these professors were covert, but still
powerful. We knew they were out to get
us and, despite our best efforts, sometimes
they did. In our promises we hope to
signal a welcoming climate, an attempt to
reach a sense of community akin to what
Palmer and others have described. The
promises have worked for us, and they
have certainly kept us on our toes.
References
Hunter, Madeline. Mastery Teaching.
(1988).
Palmer, Parker. The Courage to Teach:
Exploring the Inner Landscape of A
Teacher’s Life. (1998).
•••••••••••••••
9
Feminist Pedagogy
Meets WebCT: Bringing
Consciousness-Raising
to a Women’s and Gender
Studies Course
Mary K. Walstrom, Ph.D.
Women’s and Gender Studies Department
Sonoma State University
Rohnert Park, California
marykw1@sonic.edu
The consciousness-raising component of
feminist pedagogy involves creating student
awareness of gender inequities and building
their sense of agency to eradicate them.
Central to consciousness-raising is the
process of naming the experiences that
emerge out of the new connections students
make between themselves and oppressive
social structures (Maher, 1985). Pooling
these insights, contends Fisher (2001),
helps “increase awareness of gender injustice
and empowers women to decide how to
respond, even when decisions differ” (p. 40).
Differences in perspectives and choices
shared by women across gender, race, class,
sexuality, and cultural boundaries reduce
isolation (McCulley & Patterson, 1996).
Reduced isolation can feed consciousnessraising, as an increasing number of voices
join the naming process. I have found
that WebCT serves as an exceptional tool
for the consciousness-raising dimension
of feminist pedagogy.
Feminist Pedagogy Through WebCT
I use WebCT as a supplementary resource
in teaching a three-unit, face-to-face course
called Women’s Bodies: Health and Image.
The primary course objective is to employ
poststructuralist and feminist poststructuralist theory to examine and critique the social,
economic, political factors that shape
women’s health. We apply this critique to
situated aspects of women’s experiences
of their bodies, such as menstruation and
The Successful Professor™
menopause, reproductive choices, eating
disorders and body image, mass media
representations of women, cosmetic surgery,
illness, athletics and strength, and violence.
Class enrollment is 40-45 students and
class meetings are once a week. Because
the course fulfills a general education requirement, it draws many first-year students
For two semesters, all enrolled students
have been women. In my view, WebCT
has proven to be an especially effective
vehicle for achieving the foundational
principles of feminist pedagogy given the
large size, infrequent meetings, and undergraduate demographic of this class
(Walstrom, 2001).
Consciousness-Raising:
Awareness, Empowerment, and Action
WebCT supports the consciousness-raising
component of feminist pedagogy through
several of its standard features: the
Discussion Forum (a Main Forum and
Weekly Discussion Threads within that
Forum) and the Announcements, Content,
and Assignments modules.
In the Discussion Forum, students
assert political action for others to consider
and present a range of sociopolitical perspectives on controversial issues. For
example, in the Main Forum—a space
where all students may post items of
interest—students have contributed a call
for donations to a breast cancer awareness
month marathon and an article showing
ways to “Stop Hating Your Body.” Also
in the Main Forum, students generated a
threaded discussion on organic and vegetarian/vegan restaurants in the local area,
initiated by assigned class readings and a
guest presentation by a nutrition coach. In
addition, students are planning to post two
different letters in the Main Forum for
class members to sign—one protesting
a recent Nordstrom’s catalog that features
skeletal models and another requesting the
campus cafeteria to offer more vegetarian/
vegan items.
VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 4
In the Weekly Threads section of the
Discussion Forum, students post one
assigned question for in-class discussion
based on their weekly readings. By reading
each other’s questions or hearing them
discussed in class, they receive a rich and
varied range of sociopolitical perspectives
on course readings. For example, the
reproductive choices thread contained
myriad views on the abortion debate; the
cosmetic surgery thread featured favoring
and opposing viewpoints to these procedures; and the women and violence thread
asserted support for domestic violence
victims’ advocacy and critiqued the reasons
battered women stay.
Additional examples of WebCT’s
capacity to raise consciousness appear in
the Announcements, Content, and Assignment modules. The Announcements module
is a text block on the home page where
I post Internet resources and news stories
related to the weekly topics. These links
provide students opportunities for deeper
reflection on these topics and possible,
related courses of action to take. For
example, I posted a series of web sites
advocating body image/size acceptance
and asserting ways to boycott anorexic
advertising. I also posted links to The
Feminist Majority web site, which contains
prepared letters students may email to
Congressional representatives. In class we
discuss students’ interests in and responses
to these links. I have seen these discussions
translate into thoughtful student essays
and practical/political actions within
students’ semester-long group projects.
The Content module facilitates
consciousness-raising by housing announcements of special events or other types of
resources that I post. For example, during
the women and violence week, I posted an
continued on pg. 11..........
10
Feminist Pedagogy Meets WebCT
continued from pg. 10
announcement for an online chat session
with an officer in the National Organization for Women on the topic of Apartheid
in Afghanistan. During the athletics and
strength week, I also posted an image of
Brandi Chastain that appeared on the cover
of Newsweek to supplement an in-class
critique of sexualized images of female
athletes in the mass media. Additionally,
during the eating disorders and nutrition
week, I used the Content module to announce
a renowned author speaking on campus,
addressing the environmental, political,
and health benefits of a plant-based diet.
The Assignment module facilitates
consciousness-raising in important, less
obvious, ways. This module contains online archives of descriptions and grading
criteria for the three essays I ask students
to write each semester. Most essay questions
have two parts. In the first part, students
demonstrate their understanding of a
course concept, and in the second they
apply that concept to their lives. For
example, a question may begin by asking
students to define Foucault’s concept of
docile bodies (Foucault, 1979, Weitz, 1998)
or to explain the social-activist methods
for recovery from an eating disorder (HesseBiber, 1996). Then, students may be asked
to explain ways they exercise resistance
to being a docile body or to identify which
recovery method(s) they would choose
in counseling a friend struggling with an
eating disorder. After grading papers, I
have posted in the Assignments module
three exemplary “A” papers. By allowing
other class members to read example papers,
students’ awareness of how others are
understanding and practically applying
course material in empowering ways may
be accomplished. In sum, the Discussion
Forum, Announcement, Content, and
Assignment modules of WebCT catalyze
consciousness-raising and generate a sense
of agency for practical/political action.
The Successful Professor™
Instructional Advantages and
Consciousness-Raising Potential of
WebCT
Benefits of using instructional technologies,
such as WebCT, as adjuncts to the traditional
(face-to-face) classroom include improved
instructional quality and enhanced student
satisfaction and performance (Hutchins,
2001). To illustrate, Klemm (2001) claims
that use of instructional technologies compels
reflection on ways to meet course objectives
through an online medium and to devise
ways to express that process explicitly
to students. He further contends that instructional technologies provide educational
opportunities otherwise unavailable in
traditional classrooms since time-space
barriers are removed. Klemm notes this
freedom helps increase student interaction,
enables the use of resources not available
in print, and eases the making of connections between classroom concepts and realworld issues. Following Klemm, I contend,
there are myriad instructor and student
benefits in using WebCT, especially as a
tool for feminist pedagogy (Walstrom,
2001).
Student feedback on course evaluations
suggest ways the class—and ostensibly our
use of WebCT—has facilitated consciousness-raising and equipped students to
take important personal/political action.
For example one student writes, “I have
been able to realize that I have been ignoring destructive issues in my life.” Another
states, “This course has allowed me to
understand my own issues and to feel more
self-worth.” A third claims, “Everything
we talk about gives me a new perspective
on life and those around me. I really enjoy
talking about nutrition and eating disorders
because I have friends who have problems
with both, and I have never been able to
help them.” And a fourth erupts, “Every
topic in this course is beneficial. When I
leave class, I feel such POWER!”
Conclusion
As instructional technologies proliferate
across college campuses, it seems imperative
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to appreciate their merits as tools of
feminist pedagogy.
References
Fisher, B. M. (2001). No angel in the classroom:
Teaching through feminist discourse. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish:
The birth of a prison. New York: Random
House.
Hesse-Biber, S. (1996). Am I thin enough
yet?: The cult of thinness and the
commercialization of identity. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Hutchins, H. (2001). Enhancing a business
communication course through WebCT.
Business Communication Quarterly, 64 (3),
87-[93].
Klemm, W. R. (2001, May/June). Creating
online courses: A step-by-step guide. The
Technology Source.
Maher, F. (1985). Classroom pedagogy and
the new scholarship on women. In M. Culley
and C. Portugues (Eds.), Gendered subjects:
The dynamics of feminist teaching (pp. 203208). London: Routledge.
McCulley, L. and Patterson, P. (1996).
Feminist empowerment through the Internet.
Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women’s
Studies Resources, 17(2), 5-6.
Weitz, R. (Ed.) (1998). The politics of women’s
bodies: Sexuality, appearance, and behavior.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Walstrom, M. (November, 2001). Collaboration,
community, and consciousness-raising online:
Employing feminist pedagogy with WebCT in
a Women’s and Gender Studies course. Paper
presented at the National Communication
Association Annual Convention, Atlanta, GA.
•••••••••••••••
11
Meet the Authors
Ray Johns, Ph.D. received his doctorate from the University of Maryland in agricultural economics. After
ten years as a consultant in Washington, he became a full-time academic and taught at the University of
Maryland, Ashland University in Ohio, and Hagerstown Community College. He spent a sabbatical year at
Yale University observing the methods and styles of excellent teachers. The collapse of the Soviet Union
attracted him to Eastern Europe where he has been assisting with the transformation of agriculture and higher
education. His first Fulbright was to Czechoslovakia in 1992-1993 and the second to Ukraine in 20002001. The latter yielded a publication, “Academic Corruption in Ukraine,” that was used as the focus of a
conference of Ukrainian educators in Kiev in May 2001.
Dr. Leah Savion has been teaching for 28 years, the last 3 in Bloomington, Indiana. Her specialty is analytic
philosophy (logic, philosophy of language, epistemology, rationality theories), cognitive science, and
pedagogy theories. She is also teaching the only campus-wide pedagogy course offered at IU by the Graduate
School. She gives numerous workshops and talks about teaching related issues, such as metacognition,
motivation, heuristics and biases in learning, models of human inference, the components of effective teaching
etc. She also teaches international folkdance, swing and Latin dance, and Israeli singing.
Mary M. Buhr, Ph.D. received her doctorate in 1982 from the University of Waterloo in reproductive
physiology before joining the University of Guelph in 1988. Her research focuses on improving the
fertility of sperm for artificial insemination for bulls, boars, stallions, roosters, and elephants. She has authored
over 50 peer-reviewed publications. She chairs her department’s Undergraduate Teaching Committee and
serves on the College of Agriculture’s curriculum committee. Dr. Buhr was awarded the Agriculture
College’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2000 and was named a University of Guelph Distinguished
Professor in 2001.
Keith J. Conners, Ph.D. has taught at Salisbury University for 26 years and currently serves as its
Professional Development School Liaison with the Worcester County Schools. A professor in the Department
of Education, he served as Interim Dean of the School of Education and Professional Studies from 1986-89
and as an American Council on Education Fellow in 1990-91.
Stacie Siers, M.Ed. has taught middle and high school social studies for 12 years, most recently at Wicomico
High School in Salisbury, Maryland. She is the PDS building representative for her school and its
technical representative as well. Stacie is a frequent adjunct instructor in Salisbury University’s teacher
education program, teaching courses on her own and in collaboration with Dr. Conners.
Mary K. Walstrom (Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) teaches Women’s and Gender courses
at Sonoma State University. She also teaches Media Analysis and Communication courses at two West Coast
colleges. Her recent publications focus on problem-solving and support processes in online, eating disorder
support group interaction, Internet research methods and ethics, and gender communication styles. Walstrom
also presents workshops and lectures on body image and eating disorders in the San Francisco Bay area.
Additionally, she is a staff member at a Bay area, outpatient eating disorder clinic, where she facilitates a
support group for the clients who complete their treatment.
The Successful Professor™
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