By Adam M. Persky, Mackenzie A. Dolan, and E. Bliss Green

Adam Persky

After 15 years of teaching, here are several truths:

1. Teaching was easier when I knew nothing about cognitive psychology and how we learn.

2. Teaching others how to be better instructors is difficult, because we confuse jargon with how the mind works, focusing on technique versus understanding why the technique works.

Early in my career, I was guilty of using instructional strategies without knowing why they work. The problem with this is you don’t know how to troubleshoot if things do not go well or whether techniques that work in one classroom will work in another.

Mackenzie Dolan

Below are a handful of cognitive psychology findings I have found helpful in my teaching. These findings can translate to any class, provided you understand the underlying principles. To start, here are two definitions to help us establish a common language.

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem-solving, creativity, and thinking. It examines processes we engage in every day without stopping to reflect on the complex series of behaviors that determine our success or failure (e.g., talking on the phone while driving).

Learning is the ability to acquire and retrieve new information and skills to solve future problems. This requires retention—the ability to use information after significant periods without use—and transfer—the use of information to solve problems that arise in a context different from the original context.

With this common understanding, here are some ways cognitive psychology can improve learning.

Principle 1: Test-Potentiated Learning

E. Bliss Green

Retention of information and skills is often increased when some of the learning period is devoted to retrieving the to-be-remembered information. By retrieving, we mean pulling information out of memory. We pull information out of long-term storage and put it back on our work bench (working memory) to solve a problem. Testing slows forgetting and improves the likelihood of later retrieval success.

For example, a student reads a book to learn how nerve cells communicate. What does she do now? Option 1, reread the book (study-restudy) or, Option 2, test herself on the reading (study-test)? Research shows that Option 2 (study-test) leads to less forgetting over time. The test reinforces the content just learned.

An obvious choice for incorporating testing into a course is quizzes; however, audience-response systems (clickers), asking questions during class, or brain dumps (writing everything you know about a topic) are other ways. The key to effectiveness is making the task challenging, but able to be overcome with effort. You can have students respond to questions about the prior class session using clickers, write down their response to an open-ended question to ensure active information retrieval, complete practice exams, or do a Write-Pair-Share, in which they write their idea then discuss with a peer. These types of exercises not only help with information retrieval, but they also can help uncover students’ misconceptions about a topic, improve their memory, and enhance their ability to problem-solve.

Principle 2: Spacing of Practice

Spreading out opportunities for practice and retrieval over time improves retention. Spacing may mean bringing back older topics throughout class or intentionally breaking up a project into smaller components. Having quizzes or clicker questions on older material can help students retain that information. Students also benefit from activities that prompt them to relate new topics to older topics.

We conducted a study of spacing quizzes for students who had to learn the generic names of brand name drugs (e.g., Advil—Ibuprofen). We found that when we had a second, unannounced quiz given at a random time after the first quiz, students retained much more information 6 weeks after the semester ended. While cramming for an exam works for acute performance, spacing study periods improves their retention.

I believe in cumulative testing because of the benefits of retrieval and importance of spacing testing to improve retention. Every assessment I give has older material on it, and sometimes the older material is worth more points than the newer material.

Principle 3: Elaboration

Elaboration is the development of an existing idea by incorporating new information to augment the idea. This method improves retention by adding greater detail to a memory or idea, allowing it to be remembered more accurately.

Some strategies that help with elaboration include linking new material to old material or to students’ lives (personalization); assigning students papers or presentations; and integrating discussion, role-play, experiential learning, and concept maps or other visualization techniques.

When I was a student, I used to “teach” my couch physiology. I would ask it questions and see if I could answer my own questions. I would take on the instructor role by elaborating on the content and asking “why” questions, identifying examples of how topics related to everyday life.

As an instructor, I ask students to put concepts in their own words, relate concepts to their own lives, and identify content from class sessions that are still unclear and why.

Principle 4: Transfer-Appropriate Processing

In general, we remember or retrieve information the way we initially learned it—that is, memory will be best when the processes engaged in during encoding/learning match those engaged in during retrieval.

For example, list the months of the year in order. You might very quickly go from January to December. Why? That is the way we learned them. Now, list the months of the year in alphabetical order: “April, August, December, July… no wait, June, July…” You are much slower and much more prone to error. This was not the way we learned them.

In the classroom setting, if you lecture to students and teach them facts but your exam questions are application, students will do poorly. Just because students know facts does not mean they can apply them to solve problems. The ability to transfer, or use the information to solve problems that arise in a context different from the original, is actually quite difficult. So if you want students to apply information, you will have to teach them how to apply information. Teach the way you want students to recall information.

Teaching a topic from different perspectives may be helpful. If you solve a problem once, you know how to solve that particular version of the problem. If you solve the same problem three or four times, you start making generalities on how to solve that problem—you develop a schema.  By showing different perspectives, students can form a schema or generalities about the problem, which should maximize the effects of transfer-appropriate processing because they have more encoding formats to pull from to solve a problem than just one.

These are just a few principles that have greatly impacted my teaching. While some may be difficult for students and require effort, I tell students to consider the time and effort it took them to learn to play music or a sport. I try to impart on them that most things that are learned do not necessarily come easy.

Adam M. Persky is a PhD Clinical Professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Mackenzie A. Dolan is a PharmD candidate in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bliss Green is a PharmD candidate in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

By Kelly Ferris Lester

“How do you have time for reflection in your classes?” I receive the question from colleagues on a consistent basis. But for me the question is “How could I not make time for reflection in my classes?” As an avid reader of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1993), I believe that reflection is where the learning happens, and that the reflection of my students guides how I teach them. As Freire (1993) states, “Hence, the teacher-student and the students-teachers reflect simultaneously on themselves and the world without dichotomizing this reflection from action, and thus establish an authentic form of thought and action” (p. 83). Finding ways to incorporate reflection is a creative venture, and one that can foster an investment of self-actualized learners.

When framing my class with reflection, I consider the following ideas:

• What question will prompt reflection for this class period?
• How can I use the reflection as a transition into the next class period?
• How can I fit in substantive reflection and still stay on task with the content?
• How does reflection refine the end of the class session?
• How can I frame the sharing of personal reflection with peers in a way that softens the anxiety of being judged by a peer?

Incorporate Technology

My discipline is dance, and many of my courses are studio based or incorporate application of concepts through movement. This adds a challenge to the environment, as paper is not always accessible in the moment of exploration. A few years ago, I explored how an app could facilitate the reflections in the studio classes and how the allowed use of phones could connect with my students. The students download the app Evernote at the beginning of the semester, and in each class, I begin with a question that students respond to in a note that they share with me. The question tends to relate to the overriding concept for the class, for example, “What does stamina mean to you?” At the midpoint in the class period, I may relate back to the first question “How is stamina supporting or challenging your class experience today?” or I ask a question about how they applied feedback in this present moment. At the end, I structure a new question that invites students to consider the concept more holistically and personally: “How are you approaching the details of the performance of this final phrase with attention to stamina?” At the end of the week, the students share their notebooks with me, and I reply to them with feedback and more questions. Then I consider the overall responses as I develop the next week’s class.

Reflect with Peers

Interpersonal reflection also guides the reflective practice in my courses. Often, an adaptation of Think-Pair-Share with purposeful questions is included in a class period. In my use of this strategy, I scaffold the ways that students reflect on their personal work and then transition to peer feedback. For instance, in the beginning of the semester, the prompts are “Tell your partner where you feel successful in this phrase and where you feel challenged.” Later in the semester, I add, “Watch your partner in those specific moments and offer feedback from your observation.” The layering through the semester strengthens the students’ willingness and confidence in sharing with another person. Ken Bain (2004), scholar of teaching and learning, says, “Simply put, the best teachers believe that learning involves both personal and intellectual development and that neither the ability to think nor the qualities of being a mature human are immutable” (p. 83). The purposeful sequence of questions through the full semester leads to the personal transformation and retention of concepts from class.

Dialogic Reflection

Lastly, the conclusion of class is an important moment that can often get rushed. Students need a summary of what was covered and ways to synthesize the material. A dialogical exchange can help. The questions should be purposeful and perhaps even hint at what will come during the next class period. Instead of telling the students what I think they learned or should have learned, I let them tell me. Sometimes I ask for one word or a short phrase in response to the questions “What resonated with you today?” or “What are you still curious about from today’s class?” These types of questions allow the students to recognize the class session’s key concepts through a verbal exchange. It also allows for variation among the students’ responses and for personal investigation.

The strategies for reflection in class are limitless. Students can draw, write, tell a partner, dance, think about the concept, share with the full class, and more, but the reflection questions must be deliberate. Reflection can provide transitions or serve as a check-in for the instructor about how the students are absorbing or engaging with the material. We can’t let time be our challenge when it comes to reflection; instead, we must let the reflection guide the course concepts and layering of work throughout the semester.

References

Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: The Continuum International.

Kelly Ferris Lester is the Director of the Center for Faculty Development and Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her research interests include self-actualized learning in dance and somatic movement education. She earned her ACUE credential in December 2017.

By Kristin Flora

I’ve been fortunate to have that seemingly ‘magical’ class. You know the one—small, seminar-style setup with students actively engaged in asking deep, critical questions of the readings and each other. But I’ve also had that frustrating class: same small, seminar-style setup, yet getting discussion going and sustaining it feel nothing short of academic acrobatics. When I reflect on these experiences, the easy answer is to pin it on the students. Those in the former class were more extraverted or more invested in their education than those in the latter class.

That’s a cop out. When I reflect on my successes and failures with seminar-style classes, one variable of import is the attention I pay to community building in the early weeks of the course. The energy and strategic planning of early class sessions can be some of the strongest factors in having that magical class experience. As instructors, we can create an environment where students feel comfortable sharing ideas, critiquing their classmates, and questioning ‘truth.’

While much attention has been paid to community building in online courses, the same emphasis should be placed on the merits of building community in face-to-face courses. Currently, I’m co-teaching an interdisciplinary course on cross-cultural conceptions of beauty. It is a competitive, seminar-style honors course open to all academic majors. Students range from freshmen to juniors. I have 13 delightful students who will be asked to examine their own beliefs and values surrounding beauty while considering viewpoints from anthropology, biology, sociology, and psychology. Ideally, students will read these provocative pieces and jump into eager discussion of the big ideas, such as how we define and judge beauty cross-culturally. But without intentional community building by the instructor, students’ anxieties and feelings of vulnerability may lead to proverbial crickets.

Importantly, community-building activities are not the same as icebreakers. Icebreakers are intended to be short and superficial, often with simple goals such as learning names or eliciting a positive mood. Community-building activities are designed to foster a knowledge of one’s peers, learn how to collaborate as a learning community, and establish an environment of trust and respect. Certainly we hope they are fun, too, but the primarily goal is bigger than just making each other laugh with a silly activity.

Here are a few takeaways as to how my co-instructor and I have approached building community in this particular course.

1. It takes time.

We are fortunate to teach in a 100-minute time block twice a week. We carve out 20 minutes of the class period to intentionally focus on community building, which means we have less time for content. The trade-off is well worth it, however, as the content we do cover is richer because more students are helping drive the conversation.

2. It takes consistency.

Icebreakers are often one-off activities, which is fine considering their simple purpose. However, it’s unrealistic to expect a sense of community to emerge after one community-building activity. Thus, we integrate such activities for the first 3 weeks of the course. Trust and respect build over time. Each week, we remind students both through the activities themselves as well as through explicit statements from the instructors that they are a respected part of the learning community with unique viewpoints that are valued.

After we’ve designed community-building activities during the initial weeks of the course, we hand off the discussion responsibility to our students, who are each tasked with leading discussion for a class period. Part of their duties as discussion leader is to develop a community-building activity that sets the stage for discussion. We always encourage students to meet with us for guidance or ideas. With students feeling empowered—exhibiting voice and choice—we’ve witnessed some very creative and effective activities.

3. Make it meaningful.

One reason students groan when they hear ‘icebreaker’ is that the activities are perceived as meaningless and shallow. Provide space for students to have real, meaningful interactions. And bonus points if you can tie the activities to the course content.

For example, our community-building activity for the first day of class asked students to form two concentric circles (students faced each other). Those in the inner circle were given 1 minute to try to identify the most interesting fact they could from their classmate (without asking that very question). After 1 minute, the roles were reversed. Following this 2-minute exchange, the outer circle rotated and the procedure was repeated. These one-on-one conversations provided an opportunity for focused time to learn about a classmate and what unique life experiences they bring into the classroom. The next class period, we used our community-building time to focus on what binds us together. Using a set of low-stakes prompts, such as “Find classmates with the same color hair as you,” students organized themselves into groups and were given 3 to 5 minutes to continue the conversation, responding to questions such as “What is the shortest your hair has been?” or “What is the most unique hair color you’ve had?” Because our course focuses on beauty, we created questions to reflect the course topic, but the questions you use can take any form you deem appropriate.

During Week 2, we moved into more team-focused activities, including a group drawing task and a music task where students, in groups of three, were asked to identify the title and artist of songs pertaining to beauty from an instructor-generated Spotify playlist. To provide examples of student-generated activities, one discussion leader asked their classmates to form a ‘tribe’ and discuss the symbolism of tattoos as markers of beauty, with the final task of creating a tribal tattoo that is representative of their culture. Another student employed a fast-paced spotlight activity, where, working around the circle, each student was given 10 seconds to convey a highlight of the day’s reading; moving to small groups, students were asked to synthesize and report out the main ideas.

Investing the time up front has paid off. We’re now reaping the rewards of students who, while still not completely confident in their ideas, are more willing to take risks and engage in the deep thinking and critical dialogue that reflect the learning outcomes of the course. Especially in interdisciplinary courses, where class composition transcends major, building community is a critical component to a course’s success.

Acknowledgments: I am grateful for my co-instructor for this course, Dr. Susan Crisafulli, associate professor of English, who consistently models energy, empathy, and rigor in her teaching. I continue to learn from her each day I’m in the classroom with her. And thank you to the spring 2019 IHE 100 class. I’m very proud of our learning community, in large part because of your willingness to bring your authentic selves to each class period and do the hard work of learning.

Dr. Kristin Flora is the Roscoe W. Payne Chair in Philosophy and Psychology at Franklin College. She is a featured faculty member in ACUE’s Career Guidance and Readiness course.

By Caleb Fowler, Folsom Lake College professor of computer information science

I was one of the original guinea pigs of the first 50, and now I’m a facilitator. Like many of you, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And when I first started, I did what everyone did: I followed my instructors.

It’s interesting today we talk about changing mindsets, because that’s exactly what I did. The tools I learned from this course allowed me to do two things: One, take a step back and pay attention to the objectives I was trying to accomplish. If you’re worried about the next slide, you’re not focused on the SLO. And, second, it gave me a bunch of tools I can put in my toolbox.

The attitude change was I stopped thinking of myself as the expert and started thinking of myself as a DJ. I pull in the PowerPoints like discs and I trade them in and out and see how my students respond and then adjust.

The good news is that it seems to be working in my classes. That slide you saw with the outcomes, I saw that. The students who will get As and Bs will likely always get As and Bs. But it’s the students at the other end of the spectrum I saw the biggest change with.

ACUE has been transformative—I can say that. It has completely changed the way I think. I evangelize whenever I can because I believe it’s what we need for the future. With all the changes happening in the community college system, it’s what we need in order to keep delivering on our promise.

By Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy

A few years ago, we were tasked with an exciting, yet daunting, task: think boldly about the general education (gen ed) curriculum on our campus, a large public research university. Among the questions the coordinating committee considered were: What is at the core of an effective curriculum? Is our current curriculum sufficient as it stands now? What do our students need to flourish? Building on evidence from recent graduates, students, and faculty, our faculty committee quickly came to the determination that we could do better to prepare our students for life beyond the walls of our university. We considered broadly the meaning of “success” and decided against privileging any one path, recognizing that graduates pursue a wide variety of paths that can all be valued and deemed successful.

Uncovering inequities

When investigating our current curriculum, we soon discovered some troubling attributes. Chief among them reflects the “hidden curriculum.” As in many curricula, there were boxes to check, but some students were checking them with striking efficiency, while others were slower and sometimes less purposeful in their approach. Make no mistake, meandering through coursework en route to discovering a major is a perfectly acceptable path in a liberal arts setting, but our data revealed that some students were choosing courses to move through quickly instead of for intellectual interest and exploration. For example, students looked for classes (deemed “triple cherries”) that allowed them to check three boxes simultaneously. Did these students really have a passion to explore the triple-cherry courses, or were they motivated by their desire to finish their gen ed courses quickly? Perhaps more importantly, some students were inevitably more able to take advantage of such opportunities than others, uncovering the idea that our curriculum created and maintained inequities among students.

That inequity translated to some students finishing the gen ed curriculum in nearly half the time as other students. The large variability in how students completed the curriculum also meant that students who didn’t navigate the curriculum in a savvy way had fewer opportunities to double major, particularly in majors demanding more coursework, such as the sciences. In essence, doors were closing, not due to students’ interest, but to their lack of knowledge about how to move swiftly through. At our public institution that prides itself on ensuring access and opportunity and committing to a diverse student body population, we felt it problematic that our curriculum might exacerbate inequity by forcing certain students to enroll in summer school, overenroll in coursework during the semester, and so on.

Structure reduces inequities

Our own research and teaching have allowed us to clearly see that structure is an effective solution to reduce inequities.

For example, in a classroom, if some students don’t have the skills to take effective notes yet and others do, providing skeleton outlines can level the playing field. The skeleton outlines are going to be most effective for the group most needing them, and they won’t harm the students who might be fine without them. In fact, in our work, we find that our highest achieving students appreciate the organization and explicit expectations set by the skeleton outlines. By adding structure, more students are included in the learning, as we have reflected upon previously on ACUE’s community site and elsewhere.

In short, student body diversity is an asset within classroom settings, and instructors have the capacity to leverage that asset by adding structure to course design and facilitation. And when we do so, we, as instructors, have the potential to reduce inequities. We’ve always felt this to be empowering for thinking about how educators can contribute to a personal and institutional mission to produce a more diverse class of successful college graduates.

We considered these inclusive teaching strategies and looked for parallels in developing a new curriculum. What is a parallel way to reduce differences among students who know “how to college” and those who are the first in their family to attend college? Or for students who come from well-resourced high schools and those who don’t? In what ways can we level the playing field by adding structure to a general education curriculum?

To answer these questions, we were guided by some shared principles. We leveraged empirical evidence about what is most effective for students. Rather than leave it up to chance that students at risk were exposed to the types of learning experiences George Kuh has categorized as high-impact practices (HIPs), we plan to require these experiences. These learning experiences are transformational when done well by faculty, and even more so for traditionally underserved populations. In our proposed curriculum, all students would now complete a First-Year Seminar (small professor-led course on a specific topic), a small writing-intensive course, and a research experience (course-based or independent). All of these experiences help students build relationships with professors that can change the trajectory of a student’s path.

Many students enroll directly from high school, and finding ways to support this transition was another critical area. We both teach hundreds of students per year and see the differences that exist in preparation, resilience, and self-advocacy. Some attend low-resourced high schools and may need to develop stronger study habits.  Others come from the most resourced high schools but can fall hard when confronted with their first academic struggle. Even those surviving academically may not be maintaining mental wellness or engaging in deep learning. Thus, it seems, most students lack at least some tools to thrive. We believe an institution of learning should teach students how to learn, how to reflect, and how to pick oneself up in the face of inevitable academic struggles. Importantly, an institution should convey to all students that they belong, even if only some need to explicitly hear it to believe it. These values can be reinforced through a required academic course (University 101) designed to provide students with these supports. We’ve already piloted some sections, and some student feedback suggests that these values are transferring:

• “This course has provided me with the tools to face each day with a positive attitude and to keep hope in times of struggle or stress. I feel like an overall happier person.”
• “I learned how to regulate my learning and value the time I have in college.”
• “From this course, I have learned so much more than just how to be successful this year, or even in college. Instead, I have learned how to find success in life. I now look forward to my entire future, and know that there are multiple pathways to achieving goals. I can’t wait to see how my college experience evolves.”

The capacities all students need for a successful future 

As we mentioned already, some students navigate our current gen ed curriculum requirements as swiftly as possible. The requirements are largely based on discipline areas and not skills or capacities a student should practice. As a result, some students “bump into” courses and experiences that repeatedly allow them to practice capacities such as collaboration or oral communication in the general education, and others won’t. We feel that some capacities, such as collaboration, writing, and oral communication, are important enough to be a part of every requirement.

We asked ourselves what James Lang, author of several books on teaching and regular contributor to The Chronicle of Higher Education, refers to as the 20-year question: “What will students remember from your class in 20 years?” As a result, our proposed curriculum doesn’t dictate the content of each course (that is, of course, up to instructors to determine), but it explicitly states the 20-year goals (we call them “focus capacities”) that were determined after years of discussion with many faculty.

Vision

In the past few years, over 200 members of our community (faculty, staff, and students) collaborated on ideas around a new curriculum. While not everyone agreed on the finer points, and there was uncertainty around implementation, most have come to recognize the larger mission: A curriculum needs to be student-centered with an eye towards inclusion (similar to the goals we have in our individual courses). We are proud to teach at an institution that has a strong public mission with great access and affordability. Collectively, we aim to ensure that ALL students equitably navigate the curriculum, engage in transformational learning experiences, and excel at the capacities they will need to be successful beyond their years as a student.

Have you been involved with curriculum revision? If so, did you use equity as a guiding principle too?

In their new book, Convergent Teaching: Tools to Spark Deeper Learning in College (coming fall 2019), Drs. Anna Neumann and Aaron M. Pallas, professors at Teachers College, Columbia University, examine an idea they call convergent teaching, which looks holistically at the process of learning. Under this approach, all teaching must pay attention to several things all at once, including students’ prior knowledge, the subject matter, and the social and emotional context. The book afforded Neumann and Pallas a new opportunity to collaborate after more than 30 years of partnership. Below, they provide a glimpse into the personal and professional experiences that inform their work.

How did your personal experiences in education shape your career in research and teaching? 

AN: I was born in Israel to two Holocaust survivors, neither of whom had much formal education; we immigrated to the United States when I was six years old. I grew up in Brownsville, Texas, with much of my time spent in a store my parents managed six blocks from the Mexican border. I lived in a world of multiple languages and cultures, where my parents spoke to one another in Yiddish, my mother kept the books in Romanian and spoke Spanish to our customers, and I learned English in school. School was a way for my sister and me to make sense of who we were and to imagine a possible life in America, still connected to our inescapable past. I wanted this sense of possibility and agency for others living on the border as much as for me, and that’s what drew me to teaching, as a way to support learning. More to the point: Learning was my personal lifeline; I wanted the same for others—for me, that meant teaching. It also meant research on teaching toward improving and enriching it.

AMP: I fell for a familiar stereotype as a doctoral student in sociology. Students had either research assistantships or teaching assistantships, and the research assistantships paid better. Also, I saw them as a route to publishing, which I—and the faculty in my graduate program—viewed as central to being a successful professor. So I actively avoided teaching and invested all of my time and energy in becoming a good researcher. When I became an assistant professor, surprise! All of a sudden, I was expected to teach, and I had no preparation for it. I muddled through. I was slow to discover teaching and learning as objects of inquiry, in spite of the fact I, and many of my professional colleagues, rely so heavily on student test scores as indicators of school performance and predictors of individuals’ socioeconomic success. My work on teaching and learning has informed my research on K-12 school policy, teacher evaluation, and schooling through the life course.

The title of your forthcoming book is Convergent Teaching: Tools to Spark Deeper Learning in College. What is convergent teaching?

AMP: We see college as someone learning something in particular, namely subject matter. You could approach the teaching and learning of subject matter in a way that subtracts out students and their attributes or ignores the contexts, including cultures, in which the teaching and learning occur. That misses far too much that matters to students’ learning.

Our first view of convergent teaching is that teachers must attend to subject matter, students, and context simultaneously. This involves targeting the big ideas to be taught; surfacing students’ relevant prior knowledge, derived from their personal lives, cultures, and prior academic experiences; and then navigating the spaces between that prior knowledge and the desired learning. Our second view of convergent teaching looks at how college teachers manage the convergence of cognition, emotion, and identity, all of which can come into play when there’s distance, and sometimes dissonance, between students’ prior knowledge and the intellectual places they are headed.

What surprised or challenged your thinking on college teaching as part of your research for the book? 

AN: I’ll name three: First, it became plain that the current higher education reform agenda fails to speak to teaching, though it’s at the heart of what colleges and universities do, for students and society at large. Second, we were surprised as to how few college teachers are given the opportunity to improve their teaching. Many tenure-track faculty have access to teaching development resources. But how often do the rapidly growing numbers of adjunct and other contingent faculty have the same? Third, we were challenged to think through how to represent the complexity of college teaching. Our notion of convergent teaching requires college teachers to pay attention to several things simultaneously—core subject-matter ideas, students’ prior knowledge, the contexts in which teachers and students come together, emotions that spark as these pieces collide. How do you grasp, much less articulate, the many forms that teaching, broadly viewed, can take?

What motivated you to write this book together? Can you share some of the professional and personal history that went into this work?

AMP: Anna and I were married three months before we joined the faculty of the College of Education at Michigan State University in 1990. Moving to MSU, which in the 1980s and 1990s was a real center of gravity of research on K-12 teaching and learning, opened our eyes to new ways of thinking. I’m a sociologist of education, and Anna’s a scholar of higher education. Neither of our fields has given teaching, and its relationship to learning, its due. We found common ground at MSU and began co-teaching and occasionally writing papers together on topics such as Total Quality Management in education, doctoral research training, and learning to become a researcher in the early faculty career. But this is our first book together, though we each have authored or co-authored others. We’ve learned that our interests and expertise are complementary, and this topic grabbed our attention. I joke that writing a book together is the true test of a marriage.

Is there any single takeaway that you want readers—particularly those who are faculty, faculty developers, or administrators—to have after reading the book?

AN: Teaching has always been central to higher education, and despite some of the critical commentaries on technology and the future of higher education, it’s here to stay. But it is easy to take college teaching for granted because every college experience includes it. Further, who among us has not been taught? We want our readers to appreciate the centrality of teaching to higher education and to understand that good college teaching need not be left to chance. Teachers can work at making it better. Institutions of higher education can craft policies and practices that recognize, reward, and support good teaching, and new ways for their faculty to work on getting even better. We hope the book will provide college teachers, and those who work with them, a vision that enables both.

Aaron M. Pallas is a professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He has devoted the bulk of his career to the study of how schools sort students, especially the relationship between school organization and sorting processes and the linkages among schooling, learning, and the human life course.

Anna Neumann is a professor of higher education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She conducts research on teaching in urban colleges and universities with an eye toward improving first-generation college students’ subject-matter learning.