Educational Development Associates

Essential Skills for Traditional College Teaching

A TWO-DAY WORKSHOP

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Introduction

There are only two vocations in the world that do not require any type of prior experience or professional preparation, namely, parenting and college teaching. It is assumed that on-the-job, trial and error experience, coupled with our feeling of what might work, is sufficient. It is assumed in college teaching that a Ph.D. provides most of the entry level skills to the teaching profession whether or not the instructor has ever taught. Experience has taught us that this is not the case. There is a core of teaching and communications skills that are essential to quality college teaching. These range from course planning and organization to the design of valid tests and other assessment procedures. The result of inexperience and lack of training is a presentation-centered, passive, content-based classroom.

This workshop is designed to examine these assumptions and provide a forum to explore the research basis for quality teaching. The art of the good lecture that involves students is not an accident. Great college teaching is not an accident. It is an acquired skill.

Did you know that there is an emerging scholarship of teaching for the college classroom that will be recognized as valid as research and community service? Did you know that most instructor-generated tests and classroom questions emphasize recall of factual data rather than application and critical thinking? Did you know that the maximum attention span of a student is only 15 minutes, yet most instructors lecture, non-stop, for 50 minutes or longer? Did you know that an instructor should wait for 4-5 seconds for a student to respond after asking a question, yet most wait less than one second? Did you know that the best instructors lecture no longer than 8-10 minutes without involving their students with a question or activity? Questions like these and many more will be addressed throughout this workshop.

Workshop Learning Performance Objectives

Describe and explain at least 14 proven principles of teaching and learning embedded in empirical research.

Identify the qualities of good college teaching.

Construct a short segment of a class that involves students in high level thinking such as application or critical thinking.

Construct examples of learning performance objectives and assessment strategies that goes beyond recall and comprehension.

You will learn how to:

1.	Communicate with students through the use of learning performance objectives
2.	Teach with visual analogies
3.	Use storytelling techniques with transitions to key teaching points
4.	Design alternative handout formats that provide a conceptual structure to follow for the student
5.	Construct lectures that excite and teach
6.	Make powerful and interactive presentations
7.	Develop dynamite openings and closings for your class
8.	Use alternative grading strategies
9.	Create a stimulating classroom environment
10.	Create an active classroom
11.	Use questioning strategies for high level learning
12.	Use student feedback techniques that make a difference
13.	Identify, construct, and use trigger videos from your local video rental store
14.	Use 17 different motivational techniques to turn students on to your subject

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This page last updated Sunday, 7 January 2001