In the fall of 2003 KU psychology professor Rick Snyder made an open invitation to colleagues to join in a day of conversation about teaching. Rick called it “Professors Speak Out,” and he wanted to share a day with teachers talking about teaching. In November of 2003 the Center for Teaching Excellence hosted this gathering of faculty members generated by Rick’s invitation, and there were six papers and lots of comments. The papers and the conversations were very good, and we are offering the papers as a set in this issue of Reflections From the Classroom.
It is very appropriate that these works be united under the term “reflections” as they are connected by the theme of reflective learning and teaching. At its heart, reflection is a process in which people think about and consider some ideas, actions, or contexts that are of interest. When those acts of reflection are directed at one’s own thinking or learning, this process is sometimes called “meta-cognition”—that is, thinking about thinking. I find it interesting that each of these essays represents that kind of thinking about ways of learning, and I believe you will find these examples interesting and generative.
Professor Paul Atchley (psychology) opens the conversation by asking whether majors in his department are being thoughtful about their own education. He argues that there is a coherent thread to the educational plan psychology offers, but often students do not recognize it. He describes a program intended to help students become intentional, reflective learners by guiding that emergent understanding instead of relying on students to discover it on their own. Professor Sheryle Gallant (psychology) writes about a similar goal for her students within the context of one course. She has had good success in helping students learn a wide range of content, but she wants them to be more critical in their engagement with the material. Her essay describes a plan to help them be more reflective about what they are learning.
Professor Joe Heppert (chemistry) wanted to upgrade the experience of students in laboratories, and he framed their assignments as an inquiry rather than an exercise in following procedures. Interestingly his experience shows that a mental frame of inquiry per se is not sufficient to engage learning; there needs to be engagement with content as well. Professor Janet Bond-Robinson (chemistry) explored what it means to give an explanation to students in her chemistry class. She searched for an alignment between their reflection on the nature of explanation and her understanding of the same idea.
Professor Rick Snyder (psychology) offers a meditation on his learning how to engage students as he and they gradually become more different in age and cultural context. He has learned that he can engage students and achieve more satisfying learning when he steps outside his own life circumstances and connects his teaching with his students’ lives. Professor Earle Knowlton (special education) urges faculty members to be reflective in their use of technology. He notes that we need to remain thoughtful about the learning impact of instructional practices, using technology only as it serves those ends.
Overall, this set of papers offers ways that both students and teachers can step outside of the regular business of “doing” our classes and consider critically what assumptions we make and what implicit practices we have automatically absorbed from our own experiences in education. We hope that reading these essays will be an invitation for you to “go meta” about your own teaching and your students’ learning.
Dan Bernstein
Director, Center for Teaching Excellence