What would it take to get a standing ovation from your students at the end of a class? This is certainly a rare occurrence in any college of pharmacy. What would it take to have students rate your class as the best of the year? These are simple questions that can lead an instructor to fully develop teaching skills and become the best possible teacher. Motivation to improve teaching skills can come from personal aspirations and ambition to be the best teacher, from mentors and supervisors attempting to prompt advancement, or from students who we serve. Motivation is driven by the recognition that it is not the teaching part that is most important, but the learning.
Personal goals to improve teaching often range from the most general, “to improve my teaching,” to those that are process focused, “to learn how to use active-learning techniques in class,” or to those focused on the metric benchmarks, “to improve my student evaluation scores.” All of these are limited in some aspect. Sometimes teaching goals can appear daunting or unachievable by a junior faculty member, such as “achieve teacher of the year,” “receive a university teaching award,” or “become a member of the teaching academy.”
I am suggesting that a simple goal, whether personally accepted or recommended by others, can be used to prompt an individual faculty member to advance their teaching skills. The goal can be expressed as a challenge: identify your favorite topic (one lecture or class session). Do whatever you can or whatever it takes to make that one class among the best of the year in your college. What would you have to do to experience a standing ovation? The methods and techniques that one would learn in focusing on this one class could serve as a foundation for all other teaching.
So, what would it take to have your favorite class be among the best of the year? While there are many possible approaches to achieving this, it involves what happens before and after the class session as well as during. Most important is that teaching approaches should be student focused. Here is one way to describe the “best lecture”:
Students come to class “invested” in the topic of your lecture. A case study or short paper read before class, a few thought-provoking questions leading to the topic, or completing a survey can cause students to become “invested” and have a stake in the success of the lecture.
There is an emotional component to the class. From the first minute, the students see enthusiasm and a passion from the instructor. They can easily see that the topic is important and that they are participating in something unique.
There is a connection with the student. The instructor makes it clear that the topic is important to him/her, relates to their careers, and will be important in practice.
Certainly the class flows well, is clear and logical, and includes state-of-the-art content.
Students play an active role throughout the class. This can be accomplished by a large variety of techniques promoting active interaction, such as questions requiring audience response, students presenting findings from pre-class research, or students relating their experiences in the health care system.
The students have something to take home. Perhaps a clear understanding of how the topic fits in the “big picture.” An instructor can find many different ways to explain that “if you build your knowledge and understanding to learn this topic you could have a great effect on peoples' lives.” Examples of how real-life health care professionals use knowledge of the topic can go a long way to accomplishing this. The students see how a clinician or a scientist thinks through a patient encounter or a research problem.
Finally, students know that the lecture does not end at the close of the class period. They are invited to meet with the instructor and establish a relationship for learning. The students may e-mail questions, or even visit a practitioner or researcher who puts this knowledge to use on a daily basis. This ignites the student desire to learn more.
Many of you who have given the “best class of the year” can add much to the specifics of this discussion. If you can make one class period absolutely top notch, then why not make all your classes top notch? By adopting this goal, an instructor prompts other questions or activities that advance teaching. Who is the best instructor in the college? What does he or she do to be the best? Would you attend my lecture or class and suggest what I can do to improve it? What do instructors do at other colleges? Once we have learned how to make our favorite topic the best class of the year, we have come a long way toward making all classroom teaching the best possible.