ASPB EDUCATION FORUM

Teaching Tips for Higher Education

The ASPB Education Committee will offer an occasional series of articles providing teaching tips for university or college instructors. These simple ideas can help you create a motivating classroom atmosphere for your students. Not only will this enhance your teaching and improve their learning, but it just may cause a few of your students to say, “Hey, this plant science class is pretty cool—I can see myself majoring in this!”

Teaching Tip 1: “Getting to Know You”

For most faculty or teaching assistants, each semester brings a new set of students to class and a new set of challenges. Personalize even large classes by learning the names and interests of each student. Learning outcomes can be enhanced if you show students that you are directly interested in their academic success and progress. Forging this connection early on helps each student feel recognized as an individual and can also improve retention and attendance.

During the first day of class, have each student fill out a 3 × 5 card with the following information:

Collect the cards at the end of the first class, and use them to take attendance during the first few weeks of class. Taking attendance using the cards will help you associate names with faces and communicates that you care about each individual student and that it is important to be in class.

You can request a picture if you wish, but this is usually not necessary unless the class is very large. Asking about the student’s specific career goals expresses individual attention. Asking for the student’s interests in specific topics can help you customize the course content to ensure that you meet student expectations about the course during the semester.

Finally, ask students for the professional courtesy of informing you ahead of time if they have to miss class (e.g., illness, death in the family). Express to the students the importance of attending each and every class so that they not only get their money’s worth for ever-increasing tuition and fees, but also won’t miss any of the cool plant biology info you have to share.

Teaching Tip 2: Midterm Feedback from Students

Collecting feedback from students halfway through the semester is easy, yet critically important in prompting students to consider the impact of the course on them and to provide input on how you are doing as an instructor. Collecting feedback tells your students that you care about their opinion and allows you the opportunity to make corrections in teaching style, course content, format, and workload before the final student evaluations come due at the end of the semester.

Before the midterm exam, give back to the class, in random order (to give students anonymity), the same stack of 3 × 5 cards from Teaching Tip 1. Ask the students to write down three things they like and dislike about the course on the back of the card:

Review the responses after class. During the next class session, go over the responses with the entire class. Reassure students that you do not know who made which suggestions and that the responses will remain anonymous. Discussing the students’ lists will often elicit additional likes and dislikes from the group and reinforce which ones are most important to the students.

Many academic institutions evaluate faculty teaching quality and effectiveness solely on the basis of student evaluations. If this is the case at your institution, taking the time to solicit your students’ input before the midterm exam can mean the difference between a poor evaluation and an excellent evaluation. Of at least equal importance, this exercise focuses you and your students on the progress they are making in your course.