Skip to main content

MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Teaching Tips from Your TCC


Advice to New Teachers and New Students: Learning is a Quest

The following text was written by Dr. Maryellen Weimer in this week’s edition of The Teaching Professor Blog,
https://www.facultyfocus.com/topic/articles/teaching-professor-blog/, part of Faculty Focus, https://www.facultyfocus.com/. She edits The Teaching Professor, the newsletter to which all faculty and staff can have free access, compliments of your TCC and Kate Schiefen, Dean of Academic Services at DCC. Sign-up instructions follow the blog.

1.     Recognize that learning is more important than teaching. It’s very easy for students and teachers to get focused on the teaching. Students ask each other: “Do you like your teachers?” “Do you have any good ones?” Teachers ask, mostly themselves, “Is my teaching any good?” “What else should I be doing?” Teaching is terribly important. It can contribute so much to learning, but it’s not essential. Learning can happen without teachers, which means there’s no justification for teaching that doesn’t promote learning. This is why the focus on learning is more fundamental and why the best ways to improve teaching grow out of understanding how students are learning.

2.     Consider questions more important than answers. Learning is a quest powered by questions -- the curious inquiry that transforms into a powerful need to know. Teachers and students have the right (or is it an obligation?) to ask questions. They may direct the questions to each other, to classmates and to themselves. They should question the ideas and information set before them. They should question answers, their own and those of others. Learning is the difficult but joyful pursuit of answers and answers are good, not for what they settle, but for the new questions they raise.

3.     Take advantage of the opportunity to learn. College isn’t much of an experience for those who know everything or for those who’ve got all the answers. But college may be the best place in the world for learners. There are more of them per square inch at a college than any place else. Colleges exist for the purpose of learning. Granted, not all learners in a college know the same things or have the same levels of expertise, which is why students have much to learn from teachers. But teachers are learners, too, and for every learner there is always more to know; about what is already known and what is, at the moment, unknown.

4.     When learners gather, they do so in a space of possibility. In that space shared by learners, new ideas may be formed, new discoveries made, and this creation of knowledge is a possibility whether you’re the teacher or the student. A bit of magic and some mystery surround the learning spaces in classrooms, including those online. Many days, as learners work together, things seem pretty mundane. The earth doesn’t shake; fireworks don’t light up the sky. But then there’s that take-your-breath-away insight, or that missing puzzle piece that’s suddenly dropped into place and then the earth does move and lights do flash across the sky. Often these learning events occur when least expected. Careful planning may make them more likely, but it’s no guarantee. When teachers and students gather in learning spaces, they should gather anticipating these possibilities.

The Teaching Professor Sign-up instructions:

Go to
www.magnanewsletters.com
Select “Create a new account”, COMPLETE ALL FIELDS under “Required information and click Create Account.
Open the email used to register your account and click the link to complete your registration
Enter your email or username and password (case sensitive) and select Login
Select the “Group Subscriptions” tab at the top of the page
In the red box, enter the Authorization Code: MONROECC73 (case sensitive)
Select Activate to access the subscription

Julie Damerell
ESOL-TRS
09/17/2012