When I came to TCU to start my doctorate in English, I already had almost 10 years teaching experience at private universities and a state college. In spite of all that experience, I quickly learned my teaching could improve (thanks to student evaluations and peer-teaching evaluations); my teaching persona and student feedback were areas that needed special attention. So when I heard about the Koehler Center’s online TA/GA pedagogy certification course, I jumped at the chance.
Reflecting back on my experience with the course, there are three important insights that I gained from the TA/GA online course; first, constructing a course is more than designing a great reading list; second, effective teaching is more than entertaining students; and third, it’s okay to be a “nice” teacher. Along with these insights, I came away from the course with three important documents or “products” that have significantly enhanced my teaching: strong course outcomes, a revised teaching philosophy, and documentation of strong teaching.
Constructing a Course
Based on my past experiences, I knew the nuts-and-bolts of constructing a course and a syllabus. Now I realize that the most important first step is the course outcomes. From the reading and discussion we did in the TA/GA class, I finally realized it was best to begin with the end in mind. Some questions that helped me reframe my courses were: What skills did I want the students to acquire by the end of the semester? What products would they create to demonstrate those skills? What would be the outcomes for each assignment? And how would my course outcomes coincide with the university’s outcomes? With these questions guiding me, I was able to create clear, concise, and reachable outcomes for a future course. A bonus is that with clearly defined outcomes, it has become easier for me to evaluate student work. For instance, recently I was able to explain to a student that he received the grade he did because his product did not match the outcomes for the assignment or the course. It wasn’t that I was being arbitrary, as he thought, but was following the rubric that was built on the assignment and course outcomes.
Effective Teaching
One key I discovered was that effective teaching was not about entertaining students. Articulating a clear teaching philosophy that describes my personal teaching style helped me focus on my strengths, such as one-on-one conferencing, rather than berate myself about my “performance” in the classroom. The revisions to my teaching philosophy helped me clearly articulate how I see myself as a teacher and contemplate the changes I need to make in future.
Teaching Persona
Lastly, my most important take away from the TA/GA course was that it’s good to be a “nice” teacher. In the past I believed that being firm, “mean,” critical, and keeping my distance from students was the best method for teaching. Fortunately, I have turned away from that hard-nosed persona and embraced my “nice” side. This doesn’t mean I have given up control of the classroom or the course to students; rather, it means that I put student learning and achievement ahead of “covering the material.” For example, if students don’t understand a reading assignment, we will read it together in class, often using multimedia. By doing this work in class, together, we have a more meaningful class discussion of rhetorical moves and literary devices.
This skill of being “nice” was demonstrated to me clearly when I observed Dr. Australia Tarver’s class as one of my assignments for the TA/GA course. Though I know her to be a “nice” colleague, I had never taken a class from her and therefore did not know her teaching style. In November 2012, I chose to observe her Women in Literature and Culture class because it is one that I would like to teach one day (this was a criteria for the assignment). From the moment Dr. Tarver walked into the class, she exuded warmth, excitement, and encouragement. I could tell from her body language that she wanted to be there. She answered students’ questions and gently led the class discussion, encouraging and challenging the students along the way. Afterwards, I knew what a student-centered classroom looks like: all feel included, respected, and valued.
In Spring 2013 I consciously sought to enact a similar “nice” persona when I taught two sections of English 20833. Surprisingly (or not) I began to notice that students were interested in talking more often in class; conferences were more meaningful; and students made significant revisions to their essays in response to my gentle but pointed suggestions. I took it for a good sign on our final exam day that my students in English 20833 were sad the course was over. But even better, my scores on my student evaluations increased from a 3.86 in Fall 2012 to 4.37 in Spring 2013; and 83% of
my students in one class, and 75% in another, “very strongly agreed” that I “created and maintained an atmosphere of civility and respect.” While it may seem like I am bragging, I know that this jump from 60% in Fall 2012 shows that the work I did via the online TA/GA course paid off –not only in these measurable outcomes, but also because better learning happened in the class.
In conclusion, there were many measurable benefits from this online course. I was able to create some strong documents and have a fabulous semester teaching. But most importantly, my pedagogy will continue to be a source of inquiry for me.
This article was written by Larisa Asaeli, Department of English, for the Fall 2013 Issue of Insights Magazine.