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During my academic career, I have incrementally worked towards achieving effective teaching. In my view, effective teaching includes three processes: designing the course, leading the learning process, and evaluating students’ learning. In the beginning of my teaching career and for many years, my main concern in regards to teaching was being effective in leading the learning process. Initially, I tried to excel at lecturing, believing that the better my lectures (i.e., the quality of my presentations, supporting materials, and examples) were, the more my students would learn. Later on, in searching for better learning results, I shifted the focus from me as a lecturer to my students. Adopting active learning practices, I encouraged students to be responsible for their own learning. Finally, my last change in focus sought to make the class subject matter of the course (i.e. systems analysis, web design, or computing programming), the center of the learning process. Doing this, I find, helps in lowering communication barriers between teacher and students; reduces learning problems due to different cognitive styles and personalities; and allows everybody in the class to contribute to the learning process.
The purpose of the first process in effective teaching, designing the course, is to create a learning framework that allows the students to integrate the course topics into a knowledge structure. The learning framework is different from the course outline; similar to this, the framework presents the course topics, but also it illustrates how these topics are interconnected. The framework allows students to integrate each learning activity into their previous knowledge or experiences. In this way, students steadily fulfill the course learning goals.
Having a learning framework facilitates the leading of the learning process, which is the second process in effective teaching. Different activities can be implemented to present, analyze, or discover new concepts, relationships, or behaviors. I use this framework to make the class subject matter the center of the learning process. I divide each class session into four different segments. In the first segment, I review previous learning goals and their relationship with the framework. Then, I introduce the session topic or topics and explain their relationship with the learning framework. Following, I use active learning activities such as lab assignments, role-playing, small group activities, or Internet searches to let students learn from their own experiences. In the last segment of the class, students summarize their finding and relate them to the class learning framework.
Another advantage of having a learning framework in a course is that it can be used to evaluate the results of the students’ learning, the third process of my teaching approach. My learning evaluations assess not only course outcomes twice a quarter in the form of exams, but also the learning outcomes and experiences for each session by using student surveys (i.e., classroom assessment techniques (CATs)). These surveys help me identify successful learning activities, topics that are complex for the class, and students’ understanding. My approach to teaching integrates course design, the learning process, and the evaluation of learning. This approach has made me a very effective teacher and has allowed me to make the learning process inspiring, challenging, and fun for me and, more importantly, for the students.
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