Life in Thesis-land : teaching

Teaching Week - no, Month - no, don't we do that all the time?

Karen.Hall — Tue, 06 May 2008 04:56:00 GMT

This is my attempt at live-blogging Teaching Month, which I keep referring to as Teaching Week and is actually two and a half weeks of events, so the term 'month' is loose to start with. I'm at the Vice-Chancellor's Invitational Lecture - I hadn't originally planned to come as I wasn't invited, but then I was informed that it was the Vice-Chancellor who was invited, and now I'm here it looks like the invitation was from the Vice Chancellor to a guest speaker - this year the speaker is A/Prof Geoff Meyer from Anatomy and Human Biol, who from the introduction sounds wonderful and very busy!

The lecture theatre we are in now was the site of Meyer's first lecture as an undergrad, and he emphasises the importance of inspirational teacher in his undergraduate and postgraduate experiences - that collegial examples can bring out the best in you - that support and partnerships are crucial in making visions happen

Meyer teaches histology (anatomy under the microscope) - we had a moment of audience participation, with Freddo Frogs as a reward (bribery with chocolate always seems like good practice in teaching to me!) - and he places this discipline in context of related disciplines and applications. Traditionally, histology was taught in laboratories and practical classes, using prepared slides and microscopes etc. As student numbers increased, the resources from this mode of teaching and learning were inadequate - though computers could be added to the resources, and Meyer agreed to take up the challenge of reformulating teaching to adapt to this situation - which required a visionary approach. He, in partnership, developed a programme called The Human Body, evolving through student feedback. The programme has similar content to a textbook (though hyperlinked) and the ability for students to interact with the image through a simulated microscope, pointers to specific areas, a quiz for each section and other features. The benefits of the programme for students were that they could continually testthemselves and get feedback, which improved their final exam results. Students could also access the programme anywhere - thus freeing up lab space, staff time and resources.

Meyer teaches at UCLA as well as UWA, and there have been a range of partnerships between UWA and UCLA developing from and around this relationship.In a 2006 Teaching Fellowship, he examined the effect of replacing lab classes with just use of the programme and students were generally successfully able to identify slides - so there was both qualitative and quantitative evidence for the programme's value in producing learning outcomes.The programme/learning system came to be well known in the field and in demand, so how to let other people use it? A UWA Pathfinder Grant, help from the OII and consultants came up with the conclusion that the system could be marketed - both for its content with a publisher in the area, but also that the structure could be used in other image based areas. Thus Meyer's work fits into a broader shift to e-learning and electronic publishing. Meyer was offered a publishing contract - he flags issues about copyright control (author vs company - particularly given the image based nature of the work), rights, licensing - and so the need to get expert advice from university lawyers etc and make sure that corporate vision matches yours and so Meyer ended up creating his own publishing company (studying and supervising in business to gain knowledge and skills) called Histology-online.com Pty Ltd. To promote and market the company/resource, he's added blogging to the traditional strategies! (Yay for the teaching/research/blogging nexus). Google Analytics is a useful tool for tracking the reach and effectiveness of the site and identifying potential markets where students/colleges are looking at the site - so being proactive with marketing follow-up. The financial stuff about running your own business and sightly worrying tracking of users I'm afraid I tuned out on (one day I will get over my aversion to monetizing, but not anytime soon).

The future? Meyer is looking at new markets, such as India. This expansion can also promote the university - general awareness and as a postgraduate destination. Meeting customer needs through customising, and to develop instructor access to suit courses and specialisation, also uploading lecture notes and other resources - so also engaging with competitors such as textbook writers/publishers . This can also encourage collaborative teaching and learning. Moving away from lectures - other ways to convey information, prioritising interactivity (such as the histology monopoly games where you accumulate knowledge rather than real estate). Moving away from slide images to 3D images and animation to build new partnerships and new ways to experience learning.

Virtual Research Week

Karen.Hall — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:42:00 GMT

The PSA Research Careers Week (held 10-13 Sept) was a cornucopia of information for research students at any stage in their degree. From designing your thesis, to managing supervision and the mid-thesis doldrums, to examinations and what distinguishes a PhD, there was something of interest no matter where you are up to in your studies. There was also a focus on life after the degree: how the generic skills that you develop - as well as your expertise - can set you up for careers in research, academic or industry.

Even better, the Week is now a virtual cornucopia - with PowerPoint slides and Lectopia recordings up on the PSA website. Check it out!

Preparing to be Unprepared?

Karen.Hall — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:04:00 GMT

At the moment I'm procrastinating over two workshops that I need to prepare. I hate preping workshops and will spend days trying to prep and simultaneously avoiding it. On the other hand, philosophically and practically, I like workshops as a mode of teaching and learning. So why the disconnect?

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that for me workshops are about being in the moment: responding to the needs of students and their ideas and problems, and to do so requires a deep engagement with what is happening there and then. Coming up with a highly planned structure is the antithesis of being in the moment. Yet (of course) having a plan, and having the materials, and having the conceptual tools is what makes that 'in the moment' mode possible. It is easier when you have a sense of the group you will be working with, which in these cases I don't. Still, I'll try to come up with some activities and then see where that takes me.

Be My Guest

Karen.Hall — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:44:00 GMT

I'm giving a lecture in an English unit later today: I've taught in this unit in the past, though this time I'm just doing the one guest lecture. I think that I'm coming down with the flu that is going around (I'll blame Sanna, despite the fact my sister is the more likely culprit!), but I'm taking drugs and have a box of tissues on hand, which might be enough to get me through the day.

Guest lecturing is a strange position, I'm finding. This lecture, in particular, is a convenient way to think about my development as a teacher and lecturer; it was my first ever lecture, inherited with one week's notice when the person supposed to be delivering it was unable to do so, and I wrote it out word for word, down to 'Hello, I'm Karen'. Looking around my computer yesterday for notes, I found the transcript for the second time I did the lecture. More emphasis on the headings and subheadings, with strangely incomplete half-sentences and paragraphs - moving away from the word-for-word but still clinging to its reassurances. I was surprised at how the arguments for the first remembered version had mutated, shifting from a perhaps for simple attempt to build a sustained and convincing argument about the topic to starting to think about that argument as a way to model ways to engage with the topic.

For this third, and hopefully lucky, version, the text I'm lecturing on has been changed (a different part of a series) and so much of the old material, centered around a close reading of one passage, is no longer directly relevant. Having looked over the text on Sunday morning, I pottered around for a few hours letting the ideas simmer away subconsciously. There is a lot to say, one central thing being that the structure of the text doesn't match the thematic drive. This structural mismatch for some reason also seemed to make it hard to conceptualise a clear lecture structure. In the end, I've made the tension between structure and theme the key to the lecture, and am running a deliberately provocative reading to the text, only gesturing to alternatives. I feel a little uneasy about this reading - not because it isn't valid, but because it is partial and I know exactly how to pull it apart. Still, all reading are partial and the way I want to perform this lecture is to make that point about the inadequacy of a single reading. This time, I'm working off a set of powerpoint slides, video clips, and one sparse page of handwritten notes (words and phrases).

As a guest lecturer, I'm conscious of how the lecture I've designed plays to an implied audience: I'm relying on the students having a particular set of interests and knowledges that I can guess from past experience that they are likely to have - but I don't know them, I don't know that for sure. One advantage, perhaps, of minimal preparation is that I'm less wedded to an exact content and can shift a little according to audience response. On the other hand, as a guest lecturer I can hope for some novelty value and the freedom to deliver the lecture and walk out without having to then worry about the next tutorial. Compared to the earlier versions however, pedagogically I'm now more interested in what students will do with the material I'm giving them - the connections that they will make not only within the context of the unit, but outward, in terms of vocation and skills and critical thinking and engagement with a subject matter that goes well beyond the academy.

Open Letter to My Brain

Karen.Hall — Wed, 23 May 2007 01:58:00 GMT

Dear Brain,

I'd really prefer if you didn't wake me up at 5pm in the morning to come up with lesson plans for the next day's tutorial. But if you must, would you mind actually holding onto the plan you come up with? I can tell you that staring at a page convinced that there were three more topics to include - death grip of the first coffee of the day, neccesitated by the 5pm start - is not fun.

Further, please keep focused while in classroom setting. You are meant to be working, not coming up with silly images of me as a performing seal bouncing a red ball on my nose while I try to model engaged scholarly inquiry.

Yours sleep-deprived grumpily,

Karen

Tutorials (the MasterCard version)

Karen.Hall — Fri, 18 May 2007 02:14:00 GMT

Reading the text for the week: 3 hours

Listening to the lectures: 2 hours

Tutorial planning: half an hour

Watching students scramble to cover up the fact that they have done none of the above:

Priceless.

Lecturing: Reflections

Karen.Hall — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:20:00 GMT

I've given two lectures recently (Thursday last week, Tuesday this week) and was struck by the way my approach to lecture preparation has altered over time.

Way back in the beginning (all of three years ago), lecture preparation meant anxiety, over-investment of time and energy and generally wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'd start two weeks or so in advance, reading everything I could about the lecture topic before writing out word for word what I was going to say. I agonised about constructing an incisive and thorough take on topic, and must have bored everyone around me to death by carrying on about it. I organised all sorts of visual material to show (and then, memorably, almost strangled myself on the microphone cord running between the lecture, bank of DVD/video/CD/tape players and overhead in my second lecture). I'd sleep badly the night before and desperately need reassurance afterwards.

My most recently lecture I threw together the evening before, with two sheets of notes full of detailed content like 'plane crash as moment of origin/moment of rupture' and 'mobility (camera as character)'. Part of this change has been the simple growth in confidence that comes from knowing that you can do something because you have done it in the past, but part of it is also coming from my rethinking of what lectures should do. And that rethinking has formed part of a larger change in perspective and self-identity from student to teachers.

So what do I think lectures should do? Lectures should offer a structure to a field of study or area of inquiry. They should model scholarly engagement. They should raise, and not necessarily answer, questions. The emphasis is not on delivering all the knowledge about an area, but giving students a frame to build on in their knowledge of an area.

And so my advice to post-grads trying to put together lectures is (with the proviso that I'm not an expert and this is my opinion only):

work out what you need to know, what the important information is
plan the structure of your lecture, but leave yourself some space to develop ideas and to think on your feet
lecture planning can expand to fit the time you allow it, so limit that time and leave space for thesis work etc
if possible, be enthusiastic or at least engaged with your subject
public speaking training is handy
just keep doing it