Reconnecting Who We Are with What We Do:
Reflections on Identity and Integrity in the Classroom
Roy Fuller, Ph.D.
Part Time Faculty Fellow, Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning
roy.fuller@louisville.edu
Friday, February 12, 2016
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Today’s Session Objectives
- Go beyond classroom techniques and strategies to examine
our identity as teachers
- Offer opportunities for reflection on our identity as teachers
- Question our assumptions about teaching and learning
- Offer resources for personal renewal
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Teaching is…….
my job
my profession
my hobby
my source of income
my calling
other?
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The best teachers ask themselves what they
hope students can do intellectually,
physically, or emotionally by the end of the
course and why those abilities are important.
Ken Bain
Responses?
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Metaphorical Exercise: Global
Answer the following: Take a minute.
Teaching is to learning as
is to
.
practice is to performance.
weeding is to gardening.
recipes are to cooking.
coaching is to playing.
conducting is to the orchestra.
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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the
lighting of a fire.
William Butler Yeats
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Metaphorical Exercise: Personal
Fill in the blank: Quickly!
When I am teaching at my best, I am like a
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Self-Examination
What can we do to
examine ourselves?
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Model for Reflection: Stephen Brookfield
Four Critically Reflective Lenses – through
which we can view our teaching
1) Our Autobiographies as Learners and
Teachers
2) Our students’ Eyes
3) Our Colleagues’ Experiences
4) Theoretical Literature
How might we engage in self-examination by
using these lenses?
Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher by Stephen Brookfield, 1995, chapter two
Table work: Taking Refuge
Using the “Taking Refuge” handout - respond to
the three prompts.
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No pedagogical technique is always better
than another.
Maryellen Weimer
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What is skillful teaching?
Three core assumptions:
1) Skillful teaching is whatever helps students learn.
2) Skillful teachers adopt a critically reflective stance
towards their practice.
3) The most important knowledge teachers need to do
good work is a constant awareness of how students are
experiencing their learning and perceiving teachers’
actions.
(Stephen Brookfield, The Skillful Teacher, chapter 2)
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“I tried it and it didn’t work!”
- “No strategy, policy, activity or assignment “works” the same
way for every student.”
- No strategy, policy, activity or assignment “works” for every
teacher.
- No strategy, policy, activity or assignment “works” in every
course.
- Make predictions but don’t be surprised by the outcome.
- No new approach is the best it can be the first time you try it.
- The success of any strategy, policy, activity or assignment
ought to be measured in how well it promotes learning.”
“I Tried It and It Didn’t Work!” Maryellen Weimer, Faculty Focus, June 4, 2014. Accessed at:
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/tried-didnt-work/
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Reflection: What I believe
Respond to the three prompts
on the “What do you believe”
worksheet.
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Inspiration
Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible
and important members of society because
their professional efforts affect the fate of the
earth.
Helen Caldicott
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Through the Eyes of Students
If a student was asked to describe you as a teacher,
what do you think they would say?
What would you like this student to say?
What will they say they learned in your class?
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Themes/descriptors for best college
professors (from students)
1) Communication
2) Helping
3) Teaches well
4) Uses different modalities
5) Fun
6) Builds relationships
7) Organized
8) Motivating
9) Makes learning interesting
10) Teaches for
understanding
11) Involving
12) Caring
13) Challenges student
14) Knowledgeable
15) Respectful
“A mixed analysis of college students’ best and poorest college professors.” Slate, et at.,in
Issues in Educational Research, 19(1), 2009
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Themes/descriptors for worst college
professors (from students)
1) Uncommunicative
2) No learning
3) Poor teaching
4) Off-task
5) Unprepared
6) Poor time management
7) Disrespectful
8) Boring
9) Uncaring
10) Unprofessional behavior
11) Did not use multiple
modalities
12) Talks, not teaches
“A mixed analysis of college students’ best and poorest college professors.” Slate, et at.,in
Issues in Educational Research, 19(1), 2009
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The Challenge: Improving Our Teachers
Some traits are related to instructional practices.
Others are personal traits.
Students don’t necessarily see the difference.
These findings are significant because instructional
practices are typically less difficult to change that
are personal traits.
“A mixed analysis of college students’ best and poorest college professors.” Slate, et at.,in
Issues in Educational Research, 19(1), 2009, p. 76
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Summary: Students yearn for good teachers
“[Students] want us to share with them our love of
our fields, they are hungry for intellectual
passion, and they are most likely to become
engaged in that passion under the guidance of
people whom they care about and who, they
believe, care about them.”
B.H. Carson, Thirty Years of Stories, The professor’s place in student memories
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Palmer’s thesis
“Good teaching cannot be
reduced to technique; good
teaching comes from the
identity and integrity of the
teacher.”
Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach
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“Passion for the subject propels
the subject, not the teacher,
into the center of the learning
circle – and when a great thing
is in their midst, students have
direct access to the energy of
learning and of life.”
Parker Palmer, The Courage to
Teach, p.122
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Exercise: Best Learning and
Teaching Moments
Write a brief description of a moment in your
teaching when things were going so well you
knew you were born to teach.
Write a brief description of a moment in your
learning when everything just “clicked” and you
got it.
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Examining our Teaching Philosophy
1) Describe the best learning experience you had as a student.
2) Describe the best teaching experience you have had as an
instructor.
3) What are you trying to achieve in your students with your
teaching?
4) Why is this important to you?
5) How do you achieve your objectives you stated in # 3 above?
6) Why do you use these particular strategies as opposed to other
that are available to you?
“Six Questions That Will Bring Your Teaching Philosophy into Focus,” by Neil Haave, accessed at
www.facultyfocus
Teaching is not about charismatically charged
individuals using the sheer force of their characters and
personalities to wreak lifelong transformation in
students’ lives. It’s about finding ways to promote the
day-to-day, incremental gains that students make as they
try to understand ideas, grasp concepts, assimilate
knowledge, and develop new skills. All these small things
you do to make this happen for students represent the real
story of teaching. Helping learning is what makes you
truly heroic.
Stephen Brookfield
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Resources
The Courage to Teach, by Parker Palmer
& his Center for Courage and Renewal
http://www.couragerenewal.org/
What the Best College Teachers Do, by Ken Bain
The Skillful Teacher, by Stephen Brookfield
Learner-Centered Teaching, by Terry Doyle
Learning and Motivation in the Postsecondary Classroom,
by Marilla Svinicki
http://www.facultyfocus.com/
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