What Is Teaching Excellence at a Community College?

At the New Faculty Seminar on Friday, January 26, 2001, during a Workshop by the VCCS Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence chairs, we asked faculty to respond to the questions in the box below about how to recognize excellent teaching and then compiled and discussed answers:

Stephen Brookfield, in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (San Francisco: Jossey, Bass, 1995, page 147) suggests these questions for "Putting Flesh on the Bones" when faculty talk about teaching excellence:

The faculty member’s "style"

· A "prepared" presentation

· Dynamic, energetic presenting style

· Instructor’s comfort level with subject matter = high content knowledge, along with the ability to relate material to students in understandable terms

· A sense that the teacher is passionate about the discipline and about teaching

· Infuses one’s own personality into the teaching

· Humor

· How the teacher moves in the room to foster student participation

· Did the class time flow smoothly, including shifting focus and activity?

· Use of breaks at logical points to refresh

· Applying past experience from working in industry

· Learning themselves through further education to benefit their students

· Relating course content to other disciplines

· Use of formative feedback: asking students how the teacher is doing, asks colleagues into the classroom, team teaches

Student interaction: amount and type

· Student interaction that requires students to process and apply the knowledge imparted

· Student reactions would include eagerness to be on time to hear the teacher, to be challenged, and to linger

· Engaging students right away and getting students busy with the day’s work

· Asking questions and inviting students to think critically about the topic of discussion and getting students to ask their own questions

· Encourage students to continue conversation on the class website, allowing the quieter students to contribute

· Answer questions to the student’s satisfaction

· Involvement: Drawing students out, whether lecturing or using other activities

· Were students’ thoughts honored and integrated into the class?

· Extra information for students, e.g. handouts and references

· Listening to students; looking at students’ faces

· Instructor’s and students’ body language, including seeing the "light" go on in students’ faces

· Communication two-way or multi-point

· Welcome students’ perspectives, even if they don’t coincide with the teacher’s

· Citing examples of how students have grown over the semester

· Allowing students to learn from one another by sharing insights and personal connections to the material and stronger students mentoring weaker ones

Course and Lesson Design

· The course infrastructure, including the syllabus

· Student pass rate in relation to the difficulty of the syllabus

· Improving the course content because of changing industry needs

· Showing how their classes will relate to the students’ jobs when they graduate: Good teachers stress why.

· High standards and clear expectations

· How learning styles are used: Engaging multiple modalities of teaching with multiple forms of delivery for a class

· Variety of methods: Mixing lectures with hands-on exercises, using overheads, models, computers, anecdotes, analogies; offering alternative interpretations of data or getting students to do so

· Break down concepts into steps

· Visual aids for students who need them

· Eliminate anxiety and fear—or at least address them, e.g. math anxiety

· Using technology, e.g. PowerPoint and videos, to accent topics

· Provisions for practice, guided and independent practice

Out-of-Class Efforts

· After-class efforts beyond the door, individual attention and availability, tutor, use extra office hours, gathering with students,

· Utilizing time both inside and out of class to develop bonds with students and modeling moving outside comfort zones

· Spending time on campus beyond required office hours and contact hours

· Serving on committees that work toward bettering students’ situations

· Developing new courses or extra seminars, e.g. optional study sessions for interested students

· Recommendations from students

 

Considering your experiences so far with teaching, what has surprised you the most about your students, teaching at your current community college, or your role as a faculty member? (Note: Although the "new" faculty had an average of 7 years of experience before becoming full-time VCCS faculty, most had less than 2 years of full-time VCCS teaching experience.)

Administrative and systemic realities

· The amount of bureaucracy for processing equipment and supplies

· The time involved in being a program head

· The drop-fail-repeat course pattern

· Problems with open enrollment

· Lack of information for new faculty on college policies and procedures

· As an adjunct, one doesn’t always realize how important the teaching job is, but now as a full-time faculty member, what I teach them has to be all-encompassing so that they can survive and succeed in their field.

· The increasing number of older students

· The freedom I’m given vs. the burden of doing it all and never saying no

· Course load and amount of time required; hence, need to keep myself physically fit and up to date in my field

· Amount of time teachers have to spend on non-teaching duties, e.g. committees, reports, and more

· Willingness to jump on the technology bandwagon, the notion that more technology means better teaching vs. lack of resources and support

· Semester evaluation vs. student dependence

· The professional development model of the VCCS doesn’t seem to credit publications [VCCS-29?]

· The politics—who’s in control

· The willingness of the community college to support my needs for additional personal coursework and professional development

Students: Complaints vs. Praise

Complaints

· Lack of student interest in doing homework and reading the material so that the students are continually behind me in preparation

· Most students are working fulltime, therefore having a shorter time to complete assignments

· The commitment of some and lack of it from others: varied motivation—thirst for knowledge in some vs. others’ "You owe it to me" attitude

· Much more "nursing" of students is required than I anticipated

· Nonchalance about attendance for a service they paid for

· Students do not seem prepared for advanced classes.

· Book and how much students retain

· How little students have been exposed to fundamental knowledge by the time they reach college

· Students do not always like or want to do courses in their major (such as art) or treat their major as a calling.

· Students’ lack of familiarity with classroom assignments

· Diversity of students in learning abilities, background, and more

· Amount that students depend on faculty for guidance and advising (some have difficulty building a schedule of classes)

Praise

· Willingness to spend extra time

· How each student does all the homework even though I don’t give them credit for it

· Students at a private university seemed passive, as if they were expecting to have knowledge "poured into" them; during my first year at a community college, I find students more active, making more of an effort to go above and beyond the call of duty.

· Most are not afraid of hard work; they are there because they want to learn.

· I was involved with a club event on an inclement day—snow and ice. I thought I might have to cancel but all the students showed up—a very heartwarming experience.

· The thrill of learning from students

· Students’ hunger for learning, positiveness, energy, and persistence

· Pleasant and more motivated (depending on who’s paying)

· The difference between the math-fearing developmental students with low self-esteem and the 2^nd semester calculus courses with five committed students

Colleagues

· Differences between instructors of the same topics

· Other teachers’ independence, not a team effort

· The number of faculty who believe the workday ends at 2 p.m.

· No monitoring of performance

· The way some older faculty frown on change, e.g. new ideas for one’s syllabus or my doing extra things for students

· So little time to interact with colleagues

· I find myself withdrawing from contact with instructors at my college, except when casual contact is required. On the other hand, I feel closely connected with the students and tend to side with them in most situations when dissension arises. I often view instructors as defensively cutting themselves off from the students—sending a message that they, their priorities, and their lives are more important than the students’.

1999-2011+ by the Virginia Community College System. Prepared for the VCCS by Professor Eric Hibbison, 1998-2001 MRCTE Chair and Chief Chair of RCTE from  2000-2005. Permission is granted to use this content for professional development or other educational, nonprofit purposes.  Animations used on this site are either part of the Front Page theme or from a royalty free collection called "Web Clip Empire 250,000" ©1997, 1998 by Xoom, Inc., and its Licensors.  

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