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Teaching PhilosophyI like teaching large introductory classes. These are referred to as service courses in my department and I am thought of as being a good colleague for teaching more than my share. Although I do not attempt to dissuade my colleagues -- especially my chair -- that I have altruistic motives, in fact, teaching these classes is my preference. In introductory classes, every day I get to present material that is absolutely new to the students. My approach is essentially, "Did you know ...? Isn’t that amazing?" Imagine yourself teaching Psyc 230, Introduction to Perception. Perception -- the means by which we experience the world and ourselves within it -- is to my mind the most fundamental topic in all of psychology. Most students have thought very little about perception and that is as it should be. Perceptions are to be believed and not doubted. Seeing is believing. And yet, when we attempt to explain how our perceptual systems function, we quickly realize that perceiving is the most complicated thing that we are capable of doing. Although, we tend to value those cognitive faculties that show evidence of individual differences such as chess playing skill, these faculties are of trivial complexity relative to basic visual skills such as those that inform us about the layout of the surrounding terrain. It has become a cliche that, although computer systems have been created that play chess at a grand master level (cognition), none has achieved the wherewithal to drive a truck (visual guidance of action). Perception is the most miraculous thing that we do and I get to teach hundreds of students about this topic for the first time in their lives. As a teacher, what could be more fun? For me, the fun of teaching is being able to share with students the fun of discovering something new and amazing for the first time. Did you know that people release pheromones into the air through sweating and that these airborne chemical’s influence sexual functions? I embed a half hour lecture on the history of perfumes within a larger discussion of the role of smells in human society. After coming to the realization that, like all other mammals, our behavior is influenced by the smells given off by our mates and neighbors, students become quite eager to learn about the anatomical pathways for smell, which by the way, are quite distinct from the other senses and pass through brain areas known to influence sexuality. As a mission of the course, students need to know the anatomical pathways for each of the senses including smell; stories about perfumery and pheromones provide a motivation to learn them. Students often tell me that they talk to their friends about what they learned in class. This is always gratifying to hear. I am sure that their own understanding of the topic deepened through the telling. Mine always does. Teaching TechniquesI mention this incident as a way of demonstrating that I have only a limited awareness of the techniques that I employ. What I am most aware of are those techniques that require deliberate planning on my part. Given this limitation, I will organize my techniques under three broad teaching imperatives: Be entertaining, empathetic, and informative. These imperatives are principally applicable to the classroom teaching context. Classroom TeachingBe Entertaining. The lecture classroom is a theater. Teaching in a theater requires a showmanship style compatible the temperament of the teacher. My style continues to evolve but at its core is a reliance on three techniques: humor, demonstrations, and stories.Humor. I can be very funny. In small group settings, my humor tends to be dry and since I almost never laugh at my own remarks, people often have a hard time deciding whether I am joking. This style of humor does not work in a large lecture. I developed my classroom style by observing other people who were themselves entertaining in a manner that I could assimilate into my own temperament. Johnny Carson was one of my early models. His brilliance stems from an ability to crack himself up even though the material that he has may be awful. Demonstrations. I have a terrific collection of classroom demonstrations. A few years ago, I made a 45 minute documentary that was funded by NASA in which basic principles of perception are illustrated with NASA applications. For example, the means by which people perceive their own velocity is illustrated by explaining why people’s perceptions of self velocity decrease with increasing altitude. I have audio CD’s that demonstrate a variety of auditory phenomena, and since I relate auditory perception to music, I play a lot of classical and jazz CD’s. For example, using the musical CD’s I am able to demonstrate and explain why music sounds better when it is played loud. Stories. People love to be told stories and whenever possible I tell them. Studies can often be presented in story form, moreover often there is a story behind scientific breakthroughs. Here’s one: Many students come to class knowing that Newton studied color by passing sunlight through a prism, and thereby, producing a rainbow-like spectrum. What they typically do not realize is that this effect of prisms was known to everyone; prisms could be purchased in toy stores then just as they can be today. What Newton did was show that the cause of the spectral colors was not the imparting of color by something in the glass as was presumed at the time. He showed this by projecting the spectrum produced by one prism onto a second prism that re-collimated the light, and thereby, restored it to white. The German poet, Goethe, was outraged by Newton’s publication of this result, but that’s a different story. Why Entertain? Class time should be a pleasure. On a given class day, I wake up thinking, "Oh-boy, I get to do the lecture on loudness perception today." Similarly, I want my students to wake up thinking, "Oh-boy, I have Psych 230 today." The motivation for learning is not just to acquire information any more than the motivation for eating is to build strong muscles and bones. We lean and eat because we enjoy the consumptive activity itself. Given that students are sufficiently motivated, they will acquire information from boring lectures, but they will not develop a love of learning, itself. Prior to entering college, I was myself a reluctant learner. I earned barely average grades in high school and was never a candidate for an advanced placement course. In college, I had some truly wonderful teachers who awakened my curiosity and aroused my passion for learning. I was flabbergasted to discover that I loved college and was equally surprised that I was, for the first time, excelling in my course work – surprise, surprise. When I teach, part of my lecture is directed to the eighteen year-old boy or girl seated in the back of the room expecting to be bored. I want to surprise them. Be Empathetic. Lecturing is a dialogue, by which I mean that the lecturer and the audience are participating in a communicative exchange. Admittedly, I do most of the talking but the class’s behavior is an all pervasive influence on what I have to say. I attend to the class very carefully in an attempt to determine whether they are comprehending what is being presented, are interested in its content, and are happy with how things are going. In the Teaching Philosophy section, I discussed how I watch the class carefully. This technique is critical for me. I have often heard people promote the virtues of "making eye contact" when lecturing. It seems to me that eye contact is a natural consequence of caring about one’s listeners. In watching the class, I am allowing the students to communicate both their level of understanding and their current affect. If I am uncertain about their current state, then I will probe them. Often I will get the sense that some number of students have lost the thread of what we are covering. On such occasions I will ask everyone to indicate how well they understand the current material on a five-finger scale, one being clueless and five being total comprehension. Another scale that I use a lot is the head nod. I simply ask the class to nod their heads, yes or no, to answer a questions such as, "Should I go on? Do I need to go over this again? Are we getting sleepy? Did this example work or do I need to provide another?" By attending to the class, I have developed a set of techniques that I know will work because they have always worked in the past. On such technique involves the imaginary "Sweetie." In most classes, I describe some wonderful fact or demonstration that they will want to share with Sweetie. I assume that they all have a special someone – I hope that they do – and I refer to this person as Sweetie. The Sweetie examples are used to change the pace of the lecture and to get the students to join me as the presenter of a demonstration, even if it is only as an imaginary presenter for an imaginary Sweetie. Here is an example: Show Sweetie Color Plate 2 in the text and point out that both the blue and red flowers pictured there appear equally bright. Now, you take Sweetie into a closet with you, close the door, and wait for your eyes to dark adapt. (Here, I insert some gratuitous humor about how to spend 10-15 minutes in a dark closet with Sweetie and crack myself up as if this aspect of being in the closet had not occurred to me before.) Now notice that, once the eyes have become dark adapted, the blue flower looks much brighter than the red one. Students love these "Things to do with Sweetie" episodes so I continue to make them up. They are fun, engaging, and help the students remember the point of the demonstration. Be Informative. I believe that I am teaching the most interesting topic imaginable, that being perception. Perception is where Physics, Biology, and Phenomenology come together. I want the students to gain a lasting benefit from this material. To this end, I try to de-emphasize content that will never survive in memory a few months past the final. Moreover, I attempt to structure the course in a way that will make it obvious to the students what they need to learn. Lecture Organization. I spend a lot of time organizing my lectures. For each class, I will have only two or three pages of outline notes to myself. These notes are there as reminders of what I need to talk about and when. Prior to each class, I look over the notes and remind myself of what I need to say. The notes provide organization in a topic-comment form that is obvious to me and that I attempt to make evident to the students. During class, students are attempting to understand what is being presented and at the same time they are trying to get some of the material into their notes. People are not very good at doing two things at once when both tap the same resources, and thus, understanding and note taking typically suffer through their mutual interference. This does not have to happen. Whenever I am presenting something that is new or conceptually difficult, I instruct the students to stop their note taking. I then tell them that I will discuss this material in a couple of different ways until they agree that it is clear, and then I will describe it one more time for their notes. The intent here is obvious. First, the students listen and ask questions until we agree that the material is clear and understood and then they write it in their notes. When I present material that I do not intend to test them on, I tell them that what follows should be of interest given what we have just gone over but that they need not put it into their notes. With a few absolutely essential concepts, I tell them, "Write this down, underline it, and put stars around it. It will be on the test." Having done this, I make sure that this material is on the test. Tests. Some number of years ago, it finally dawned on me that the purpose of tests is not to provide a means for distributing students along a grading curve, but rather to structure their studying. Studying can be a terrific learning exercise if students know what to study. I now believe that the best way to engender effective studying is to provide a sample test and a review session that discusses it. I always do this and the review sessions are one of the most intensely informative and satisfying times for both the students and for myself. I attempt to minimize the amount of memorization required to do well on my exams and instead write questions that require students to apply what they know to novel contexts. I write very few questions that ask for key terms and definitions. Instead, I write questions like, "Sweetie has a sinus cold, is congested, and as a result cannot taste his/her food very well. Why has Sweetie lost most of his/her appreciation for flavors?" Since application questions predominate the sample tests, students realize that they must relate what they know to novel contexts and that they need to do this when they study. This requires a more active form of studying than what is required to memorize terms and definitions. Students will soon forget that the olfactory mucosa is the receptor surface for smell, but they will not forget that smell is responsible for most of our perceptions of flavor. MentoringMuch of my time is spent in mentoring activities with undergraduates working on distinguished majors theses, with graduate students, and with postdocs. In this role, I strive to build a learning environment in which these individuals can learn, grow intellectually, and exercise their independence. Especially with graduate students and postdocs, the hardest quality to nurture is independence. All of these individuals are intellectually gifted, but many have risen to their current position primarily by doing well in course work. Their initiative, imagination, and independence have received little exercise.To develop independence, one needs to be given the freedom to make choices. I try not to assign research projects to my students, but rather provide them with a smorgasbord of possibilities from which they can choose. I generate a lot of research ideas which I continuously throw out into the lab environment. Students are free to pick up one of these ideas or not. These ideas derive from my ongoing research program, but when presented to the students, the ideas are not so well developed that the student has little room to express their own initiative. One of the biggest advantages of being a tenured Full Professor is that I can allow my students to assume the first authorship role on projects that originated from my ideas. Nurturing their careers is of greater concern to me than is advancing my own. AdvisingAs director of the Undergraduate Degree Program in Cognitive Science, I discuss the major with interested students, help students fill out declaration of major forms, advise students during enrollment periods, and provide general advice on a variety of issues. When choosing a major and also when picking a concentration within the major, students tend to believe that they must narrow their interests in selecting a program of study. I attempt to help them see that it is equally an opportunity to broaden their horizons. Rather than ask them what they want to do with their degree when they graduate, I phrase the question as, "What doors do you want to have open for yourself when you graduate?" The advising exercise then becomes one of maximizing the number of open doors.
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