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NPR is starting off a series titled "50 Great Teachers" and is starting with Socrates:
We're starting this celebration of teaching with Socrates, the superstar teacher of the ancient world. He was sentenced to death more than 2,400 years ago for "impiety" and "corrupting" the minds of the youth of Athens.
But Socrates' ideas helped form the foundation of Western philosophy and the scientific method of inquiry. And his question-and-dialogue-based teaching style lives on in many classrooms as the Socratic method.
Most of us have been influenced by our teachers, and some of them may have even been great ones even if, unlike Socrates, they toiled in anonymity. So, I ask this question: Who were (or are) your greatest teachers, why, and what did you learn from them that made them so great?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kell on Thursday October 30 2014, @02:34AM
To turn the problem on its head, I'm a university lecturer teaching mechatronics to fourth year students. I want to become a great teacher. What advice can people give me about what worked in their classes and what didn't?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30 2014, @02:47AM
When a student asks a question, a good teacher tries to see the student's POV rather than firing off a canned answer. Why did s/he ask that? If they're confused, then something needs to be clarified. If they're misguided, then maybe the answer should take the form of "OK, suppose we did that. Now look..."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 30 2014, @02:50AM
Demand that all students take notes by hand and turn their ringers off, and any student brandishing a gadget or emitting a gadget's ringtone or other noise gets only one Mulligan before they're ejected from the class for "disruptive behavior." Exceptions to the rule like Doctors-on-call or drug dealers must provide written documentation beforehand.
Most of your students that actually make it through the whole program will thank you for it later.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday October 30 2014, @03:01AM
I'm sitting here trying to think what makes a great teacher -- I've had so many excellent and great teachers I wouldn't know where to start. I had only one really bad teacher all through school, for 8th grade American History. He managed to make the subject dry and dense; partly himself, partly his choice of textbook. That was the only class where I ever got a D. I only had one really bad teacher in college, for Physical Chemistry; he could not relate to students and was impossible to talk to (he had some sort of OCD/fear of errors that really interfered, and only taught because it let him do research).
I guess what distinguished my teachers was that they were excited to be there, every single day. They wanted to share knowledge, not just stuff it into our heads. They'd bend over backwards trying to impart understanding. We always had the rote learning that puts a subject at your fingertips for life, but it was never just memorization; we were taught the fundamentals behind it as well. The result was that our schools were consistently in the top 1% nationwide.
And we were expected to be disciplined, and to do our best. No one acted out in class (on the rare occasion when someone did, out came the paddle). It was embarrassing to be seen with a grade below par. The eggheads were the school heroes.
And we had very little homework (and none at all, other than quarterly book reports, until 9th grade). The current craze for homework is not teaching. It overloads young minds that then never get a chance to assimilate the day's learning. We don't expect adults to work 12 hours a day; why do we now expect it of kids, who get 7 hours of school and 5 hours of homework, starting in grade school??!
I applaud you for aspiring to be a great teacher, and I hope your students remember you well, as I do my many wonderful teachers.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by davester666 on Thursday October 30 2014, @03:19AM
1. Actually know what you are lecturing about. I've had profs who literally worked through a textbook a chapter or so a week, each week making a lecture out of it, and be completely unable to answer ANY questions about the lecture he just gave [oh yeah, also don't save all questions for the end]. So every week, there would be a bunch of questions, he would write them down, then at the start of the next class, proceed to answer them. Completely worthless. Naturally, this prof kept teaching this class, the same way, every year, no matter how low a rating the students gave him]
2. Be interested in what you are teaching. My best university prof was a Dr. Kharighani, who was always super-enthusiastic about teaching us 2nd and 3rd year math. Of course, the university turfed him right away [even though he clearly had the highest student rating of any prof for classes taken by Engineers].
3. Be interested in your students actually learning the material. Dr. K would notice the kind of questions you asked about the work, and would not only just answer the question right away because he knew the material, but also would figure out if you were having trouble understanding the principle he was teaching or just how to apply it in a specific circumstance.
4. He would also make late-comers sit in front, and make them pay attention. Occasionally, chalk would fly.
5. As well, he would notice AND ask about why you missed the last class, in front of everyone. People rarely missed his class [and generally didn't want to because he generally made it interesting].
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday October 30 2014, @04:57AM
First of all, you have to be excited about your subject. That's not enough of course, you have to be able to draw in your students so that they share that excitement. I wish I could tell you how to do that, but it seems to be an art that few know, maybe they have it at the start, maybe they learn it, perhaps an acting class could help you there. Of course, you would need a great teacher there...
Second, try to keep it in the classroom. Some homework is obviously necessary at a university level, students need to test themselves to be sure they are grasping the subject, but I've seen too many teachers that just pour it on, particularly in cases where the class as a whole fared poorly on a test.
Third, take your students seriously. Even a seemingly stupid question might just be a tiny roadblock to a student's understanding and in most cases, it is a question others were afraid to ask. Bonus points for you if you can see deeper into questions into how your students are viewing the subject. The classic answering a question with a question technique can help draw everyone into the subject. Be honest about the limits of your understanding and push your students to push you.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, work on getting better all the time. Nobody's perfect, you should be learning as much as your students are learning. Teaching is not something you walk off the street and are great at, you should continually be learning what works and improving your methods. Never belittle a student, they can overreact to the smallest things.
In the end I suppose, if you are enjoying the experience your students will hopefully be enjoying it as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30 2014, @06:01AM
I cannot put enough emphasis on this: love what you're teaching.
Don't be dry and dull, don't recite. Numbers and calculations are for books and tutorials. You're there to generate a level of understanding in the students.
Throw in silly little jokes, if they help keep attention. ("So if you produce sufficient numbers of these bats, the number of Wom players who buy them ... geddit? Wom bats? Anyway, the number...")
Keep looking at your audience. If they seem bored, you're probably doing something really wrong. Don't use a monotone, but you don't need to be that nerdy kid from the Simpsons. Don't talk at a regular pace, either - break it up, ask questions. Sometimes, give chocolate marshmallow fish out as a reward for questions.
Something else I wish I had, while studying maths (my learning disability makes things a bit difficult at times):
if you're teaching, say, derivatives and integration, don't just teach the method. Explain what you might use the area under a curve for, but don't just stop there. I really can't remember the uses for it but explain why it gives you what you need.
In my Computer Science classes, I'd have all sorts of crap thrown at me, then in the labs I wouldn't get how the specifics of it related to the lectures. (Again, my learning disability.) Try and give examples. Be somewhat interactive, and try to work out what you're actually being asked.
I had a Computer Graphics lecturer once explain to a class that if you could create a battery that would never lose its recharge capacity, you'd sell an unlimited number of them. One of my classmates pointed out that you wouldn't sell an unlimited number, because once everyone had what they needed they'd almost never replace them. The lecturer couldn't grasp what point was being made, and kept saying that you'd sell a limitless number. Don't make that mistake - it may not seem like much, but it demonstrates how much attention is being paid by the lecturer. He also disputed the Guiness record for the highest fall without a parachute.
I can't say this enough: love what you're teaching. Want to teach it to a class of people. They'll feel your passion. I've been inspired by a number of lecturers, including a Greek Mythology lecturer who was just a pleasure to turn up and listen to. The semester ended with him three weeks behind, my biggest disappointment being that class was over.
If you love what you do, your students will enjoy your lectures.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday October 30 2014, @01:38PM
Some pointers:
1. Care deeply about what you are teaching, and know it intimately. That kind of passion and knowledge is contagious.
2. Care deeply about the success of your students in learning the material. (Don't worry so much about them getting good grades - if they really learn the material, the good grades will happen. If they don't, they deserve the grade they get as a result.)
3. If you get to the point where a student asks a question you don't know the answer to, the right answer is always either "I don't know that, so let's try to figure out a way to come up with a good answer." or "That's a really good question, but so far nobody else has been able to come up with a way of answering it. I'll help you find the current research on the subject."
4. Admit mistakes when you make them. One of the better math teachers I had in high school spent most of the class time doing the homework problems and having us students gleefully point out his mistakes - which was a great teaching device, because it meant we got really really good at spotting and correcting our own mistakes.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.