How to be a good teacher

In American graduate schools, a professor gets promotion on the basis of how much money they bring in through grants, how many papers they publish every year, how many students graduate under them, blah blah, and lastly how they teach. It is sad that such an evaluation method forces many ‘teachers’ to focus more on research and publications instead of teaching. And many new recruits mistakenly undervalue the importance of teaching ignoring it completely. But blaming the system won’t help. Agreed that it is expected from them to work hard on grants and papers, but they do have a basic responsibility to teach and guide the future generations.

There is no formal training for the new professors on how to teach. Most of the professors have no idea about what is expected from them. Teaching is not about reading slides, putting a number of complex topics on syllabus, or overburdening students with assignments to keep them busy. If you really want to be a better teacher, here are some points that I have borrowed from Chuck and put it from a (Ph.D.) student perspective.

It is not about you, it is about them – No, really it is not about you. You are there to help students learn what you know and explore what you don’t know. No one knows everything and in that sense you are also a student in the class. Create a learning environment in class instead of the ‘traditional’ teaching one.

Know your students – Knowing your students is very important. Assuming that they are like a clean white board is wrong. Each one has different experiences, background and prior knowledge. Every one sees the world differently. Knowing them will help you understand their expectations from the course.

Make your students feel comfortable – If your students feel comfortable then only they will have courage to ask questions and take initiatives. They won’t take the risk of speaking their mind to avoid embarrassment, if you are providing them a safe learning environment.

Show genuine passion – I have observed that students like the professors who are passionate about their field and exhibit it genuinely. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that students are naive and they won’t know if you are faking. They might not know your subject but they are not dumb. They have their own criteria to make decisions.

Tell them what they will gain – Every course every class has a purpose. If you make clear what students will learn in the course and what they will gain from it, they will be more inclined to learn and take efforts.
Communicate clearly – Even if you are well learnt and expert in a subject, if you can’t communicate clearly, your students will be confused and doubt your authority.

It is OK to say ‘I don’t know’ – I have seen professors for whom it is very hard to say, ‘I don’t know’. They try every possible thing to avoid the question or rebound it back to the student. As I sais earlier, students are not dumb. You’ll lose your credibilty. Better to say, ‘I don’t now but I’ll get back with you in next class’.

Teach from heart – Just like powerpoint slides are not ‘the presentation’, jsut repeating what you have learned is not teaching. Presentation is good when it is personalized by the presenter. Similarly, you will teach well when you can connect with the subject.

Repeat important points – I call them take-home points. Everytime I teach a class I make sure that the take-home points are repeated through out my presentation but are delivered in different ways. If you are just dumping more and more material on the student without ever repeating what is important, then students don’t learn anything. Yes, I am serious. I can say this because recently I recieved feedback from a class TA that the students expressed that they learned most from my class of all the other classes. And since I am a student too, I can tell that I mostly remember only the take-home points(if there are any) from a class.

Ask good questions – Ask such questions that show that you are really interesting in knowing what your students think and how much they have learned. These questions can be the ones that basically repeat the take-home points and/or explorative types that leads to open discussions.

Teach how to think – Your job as a teacher is not a transaction where you get paid for sharing your knowledge. If you want to be better, give some space to your students, help them learn how to think independently and solve problems, make meaningful conclusions, and take decisions.

Listen to them – Listening to your students will help you in understanding them better. Don’t try to guess what they are thinking. Let them speak without interruption.

Listen behind the words – It is important to listen to the emotions behind the words. This way you can connect to your students better. You’ll understand how they really feel about the subject and how much comfortable they are with it.

Create a synergetic environment – Try to build an environment where there is healthy competition among the students and they are not afraid to share their knowledge with each other.

Every student is different – Every student has different strengths. If you know your students you can figure out the best way to teach them the subject. Your lectures need to have different components for varied taste of students.

Never stop teaching – I never stop learning so I like teachers who never stop teaching. Become a teacher once, be a teacher for lifetime.

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