We The Professors

POTPOURRI FOR NOVEMBER

Ideas to ponder and to connect to higher education. From performance reviews to delighting students to forgetting technology to amazing resumes. 

----------

A post from the blog of the venture capital firm, First Round Capital. 

"When Carly Guthrie was running HR for Per Se, one of the hottest restaurants in New York, the General Manager gave her a piece of advice: “You know, Carly,” he said. “If we’re doing our job as leaders, a performance review should only be two columns: Column A is what you do great and Column B is what you do not-so-great. Now, here’s how we move things from Column B to Column A.”

----------

Warren Buffett, American business magnate, investor and philanthropist:

"If we are delighting customers, eliminating unnecessary costs and improving our products and services, we gain strength. But if we treat customers with indifference or tolerate bloat, our businesses will wither. On a daily basis, the effects of our actions are imperceptible; cumulatively, though, their consequences are enormous."

----------

John Lasseter is Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and Principal Creative Advisor, Walt Disney Imagineering: 

"Technology is amazing and it is getting better all the time. The tools are remarkable. But the most important thing is, as you are deciding to learn about computer animation, forget the technology! The technology never entertains an audience—it's what you do with the technology. Therefore, the most important thing to learn is learn the basics...learn the fundamentals...of art...of drawing....color theory....principles of animation..."

---------- 

From the blog of Seth Godin, American author, entrepreneur, and marketer:

"References available upon request

Of course your references are available upon request. What are you going to do, refuse? 

If your references are amazing, don't offer them on request, include them. If they're not stellar, do better work and get some stellar references. Give me names and phone numbers and actual testimonies."

 

STUDENTS, TEACHING, AND QUALITY DETERMINATIONS

-------
New posts every Monday and Thursday. 
Practical information, opinions and ideas for higher education.
-------

Are you a good teacher? How do you know?

1. Do more than a few of your students get jobs in your field?
2. Do those of your students who desire a graduate education get into graduate school?
3. Do students in your courses leave each course with the knowledge and skills you taught and you wanted them to learn? How do you prove that?
4. Do students who have taken your courses often ask you questions or point out interesting things about your courses weeks or months or years after they have completed those courses?
5. Do students talk about the courses you teach rather than just you as a teacher?
6. Would most students attend your courses if there were no attendance requirement?
7. Are you, as a teacher, constantly evaluating old and new methods of instruction and determining through practice what actually works?
8. As a teacher, do you regularly study teaching?

The merits of good and great teachers are ultimately not determined by student evaluations or by teaching awards. The merits are determined by the things students do after they take your courses, and by your constant attempts to make yourself a better teacher.

For the last five years of your career, you should be the best teacher you ever were.

 

CREATIVITY AT ITS MOST EXCEPTIONAL

Here’s a fascinating classroom idea that’s not for the feint of heart. And it works, with tweaking, for all size classes.

1) Write the content of the class session in the form of a two-person interaction.  Perhaps one person asks the questions and another answers. Perhaps there’s a sort of debate. Perhaps there’s a back-and-forth dialogue that moves quickly. Or perhaps it’s a combination of all of the above. Write what you consider to be a great class.

2) Then, using very careful timing, have someone on campus with video expertise record you playing the part of one person in the interaction.

3) Then have that same person edit the video so that the final classroom presentation becomes you, physically in the classroom, interacting with you, the video person. In effect, you are having the class taught by two people interacting with one another. The twist is that both of the presenters are you.

4) The biggest problem in creating this is timing the video to allow for your in-the-flesh interactions.

5) Yes, I have seen this sort of presentation twice. To make it more creative, one of the profs had his video persona in a variety of locations such as office, coffee shop, library, and a few other campus landmarks. I have also seen it done with the prof getting students on video as the interactors and even occasionally an expert or guest to discuss and engage in the dialogue.

6) Another different sort of interaction is to have a guest speaker via Skype or some other conferencing software be “present” and be interviewed by the professor. The advantage of this is that the guest can literally be from anywhere in the world.

Yes, it’s difficult. Yes, it will take you out of your comfort zone. Yes, it’s a bit like a stage presentation.

But yes, why not?

Note: If you do not think this is for you, share it with someone you think would do this.

 

A TOOL THAT IS SIMPLE, RELIABLE, AND TRANSFORMATIONAL

In 1945 the invention of the overhead projector changed education. Schools could acquire these devices, and faculty could use them without assistance from the office known as AV Services. In those days the most complicated technological event, which often did require assistance was the showing of 16mm films.

Slide projectors entered classroom popularity in the 1950’s and they too were easy-to-use portable devices, requiring only an occasional changing of a bulb.

All of these apparatuses brought new dimensions to education, bringing visual communication to the classroom in ways a chalkboard never could. And the thing about these technologies was that both the overhead and slide projectors had the two things necessary to actually be adopted into education. They were simple and reliable. And both were also transformational, which meant they allowed teachers to do things they could not do before these technologies existed.

Which brings us to the present day.

Most of today’s technological tools are transformational, but not always simple and reliable. Ask anyone who has used an interactive whiteboard or even, on occasion, a video projector.

Perhaps the most transformational, simple and reliable classroom device existing today is a device not yet commonly used as a classroom tool at all.

That is the tablet, most notably represented by the iPad.

Tablets can be used as note taking and paper-writing devices, search devices, still and video cameras, audio recorders, video players and a virtual conglomeration of other activities. And a tablet can also contain textbooks in the form of iBooks or eBooks, which can be instructor-created or department-created or even be school wide creations.  And these textbooks can be bought at a fraction of the cost of a regular college textbook, or even sometimes cost nothing at all.

In fact, a single eBook/iBook and a dozen or more useful Apps can be purchased for the cost of one paper textbook. And each one of those Apps can be used for learning activities that are not just technology-for-technology sake, but rather for actual learning activities. And even equipped with a keyboard these devices do not take up the space of a laptop.

The perfect technological device to replace notebooks and pens, traditional textbooks, calculators, calendars, dictionaries and cameras hasn’t been invented yet. But the tablet is pretty darn close.

 

WHEN ABANDONMENT MAY BE THE BEST PLAN

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a common saying in any business, and is often said by employees to resist change.

But what if it is broke? Maybe “don’t fix it” is applicable to that as well.

• Instead of fixing it, perhaps it should just be abandoned.
• Perhaps whatever needs fixed is out-of-date.
• Perhaps whatever needs fixed is just the way we’ve always done it and it has outlived its usefulness.
• Perhaps whatever needs fixed has been eclipsed by new technology.
• And perhaps whatever needs fixed needs re-invented, not fixed.

Two examples.

First, pamphlets and other printed publications to introduce programs, departments, services or other university entities are simply wasted paper today. Students do not read these printed pieces. They just do not. Perhaps their parents do, but today’s students live in an electronic age where information is best disseminated through a website, a blog or even an App.

Second, tables set up in gymnasiums or other common areas to pass out those pamphlets and other material are equally useless. These tables, staffed by faculty and students are friendly, personable and often make the programs seem fun and interesting. But that is not why students should be enticed into something. Send electronic messages (ideally text messages) inviting new students to an informational meeting after they arrive on campus. Or invite them to take an introductory course. Online marketing works far better with today’s students than tables staffed by people who pass out printed material that is rarely read and point out lots of information that is rarely remembered.

Fixing things that have always been done but are no longer useful or productive is simply not the way of the world today. And especially not when 17 and 18-year-olds are involved.

Re-invent. Don’t just repeat in a slightly different way. 

 

THE SKILLS OF YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

Colleges and universities are constantly being urged to teach the skills of tomorrow. Teachers are told to teach tomorrow’s skills today. Students are told they need to be proficient in the skills they will need in the future.

But what exactly are the skills of tomorrow? And have profs been “secretly” teaching them all along? Are tomorrow’s skills, in fact, the skills of yesterday, or some mysterious set of skills universities either don’t know or haven’t figured out yet?

Just exactly what precisely, specifically are these skills of tomorrow?

___________________________________

According to the American Management Association (AMA), “executives believe that to grow their businesses they need a workforce fully equipped with skills beyond the basics of reading, writing and math. Skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation will become even more important to organizations in the future.”

----------- 

The Association of American Colleges and Universities says “Beginning in school, and continuing at successively higher levels across their college studies, students should prepare for twenty-first-century challenges by gaining:

1. Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
   Gained through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts.
2. Intellectual and Practical Skills, Including:
   • Inquiry and analysis
   • Critical and creative thinking
   • Written and oral communication
   • Quantitative literacy
   • Information literacy
   • Teamwork and problem solving
3. Personal and Social Responsibility, Including:
   • Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global
   • Intercultural knowledge and competence
   • Ethical reasoning and action
   • Foundations and skills for lifelong learning
4. Integrative and Applied Learning
   •Gained through synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general         and specialized studies.

-----------

Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates, has had the following learning outcomes since 2000. These outcomes, the university says “frame the unit's mission to prepare students for the 21st century.” 

• Critical Thinking and Quantitative Reasoning
• Global Awareness
• Information Literacy
• Language
• Leadership
• Technological Literacy

___________________________________

As is easy to see, there are very few of what are cited as 21^st century skills that were not also yesterday’s skills.

All three passages above could easily be picked apart by any teacher or administrator in higher education. Things that seem obvious:

• Skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation are skills that were taught during most of the 20th century. They are not new.

• If employees need to think critically, solve problems, innovate, collaborate, and communicate more effectively, then higher education has always been the place to go to develop those competencies.

• Calling skills 21st century challenges doesn’t mean they were not also 19^th and 20th century challenges.

• Couching skills as learning outcomes does not necessarily make those skills new.

Now it is feasible that perhaps teaching the skills of tomorrow means teaching the technology of tomorrow. But, the jury is still out on exactly how much technology actually helps learning. Technology does assist teaching and has a lot of bells and whistles and seems to make things easier much of the time, and it is very cool, but how much it actually assists the learning process is largely often dependent on the skills of the particular professor. And, many times, students are more adept than faculty with new technology.

The point here is that skills haven’t really changed. The technology has changed. The faculty has changed. The techniques have changed. But tomorrow’s skills are yesterday’s skills and as long as we’re teaching them, have taught them, and will teach them, that’s okay?

After all, since we’ve always been doing it, we’re pretty good at it.

 

TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY EVERYWHERE, BUT NARY A PIECE THAT WORKS

•How does this Smart Board work?
    •Why won’t the computer projector come on?
        •Half the clickers just do not function.  Why?
            •The PowerPoint presentation simply will not load on this computer.
                •Why does this classroom not have Wi-Fi?

Why…why…why?

My most recent job was at an international university. During my years there the university built an entirely new campus outside the city to replace an older, smaller campus in the center of the city.

The new campus is pictured to the left.

Yes, it’s monstrous, ultra-modern, with a mall, a huge library, a conference center and many classrooms, auditoriums, conference rooms and offices with all the technology a teacher could need or want.

Yes, all the technology a teacher could need or want. Which brings me to the purpose of this post.

No matter how much technology exists, and how new it is, if it doesn’t work, or if the teacher doesn’t know how to use it, then a teacher can look like a fool in front of the class. Of course the prof can smile politely as he/she waits for a tech person to come and help. Or the prof can laugh nervously as a student or two or three try to help make it all work.

Meanwhile the class clock is ticking, no learning is occurring, nothing is happening and, honestly, a little of the je ne sais quoi of being the teacher is lost.

And the more classroom technology there is, the more problems there are to occur, and the more alternative plans must be made for when the technology doesn’t work.

-------------

At the campus pictured here the problem at the beginning was that the technology often did not work. Then it did work, but faculty had never been taught properly how to use it. Whole class periods were lost way too many times and frustration was initially rampant.

As profs, it IS important to go over the technology before class begins and to do it IN THE CLASSROOM in which the technology will be used. It IS important to know you know how to use it. And, like any other form of teaching, it IS vital to make it all seamlessly integrate with your content and your style.

It’s also important to have some kind of alternative plan if things simply don’t work. I know that’s not always possible, but some strategy is necessary other than standing there endlessly waiting for someone or trying to figure out why something is not working.

These are problems that did not occur 30 years ago because overhead projectors, slide projectors and blackboards rarely failed to function, and if they did, more chalk and spare bulbs were usually readily available.

Poor use of technology can ruin teaching, can ruin the rhythm of a class presentation, and can be a genuine impediment to classroom culture.

Poor performing technology is a fact of life today and that poor performance must be anticipated, work-arounds must be charted, and quick thinking and quick action must be mapped.

It’s not your grandmother’s classroom anymore.

And the more advanced understanding and foresight that exist about that, the more successful teaching in the 21^st century will be.