THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 1, 1995 TAG: 9504010233
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
The Harvard University lecture hall was crammed with hundreds of students, but the atmosphere was intimate and electric.
Students offered passionate, incisive comments on the merits and failings of affirmative action - specifically, Harvard's own admissions policy. The professor, Michael Sandel, stood in the background, offering a few comments but refusing to dominate the discussion.
A video of Sandel's class, shown at an Old Dominion University conference Friday, provides ``a compelling example of good teaching,'' said Maryellen Weimer, a Penn State University professor. ``The students are intellectually grappling with the issues.''
Weimer was among three speakers at the seminar, designed to help professors improve their teaching skills. The conference drew 50 people at ODU and was beamed to more than 150 campuses across the country.
What made Sandel's class so exciting?
First, he brought the topic home by using an example everyone could relate to.
``It's a beautiful example of bringing content to the students,'' said Weimer, former associate director of the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning and Assessment at Penn State. ``What's known is used to connect with what is unknown.''
Sandel also succeeded by refusing to play the know-it-all. ``He doesn't really answer the student's comment,'' Weimer said. ``He summarizes it and uses it to springboard to something else.''
But another participant, Thomas A. Angelo, noted that the laid-back approach doesn't always work.
``If I don't give students the answer, they seem to get very nervous and impatient - and not just freshmen,'' said Angelo, director of the Assessment Forum of the American Association for Higher Education in Washington. ``They either think I don't know it or I'm holding back.''
The participants agreed that political and economic pressures are forcing colleges to more closely examine the quality of teaching.
``Finally, in higher education, we are where we should be - where we are emphasizing teaching as well as learning,'' said Peter Seldin, a professor of management at Pace University in New York. ``It's long overdue.'' They offered other tips:
Vary teaching styles. ``Don't lecture the same way every day,'' said Seldin, who suggested that professors could even shift gears every 15 minutes.
Give students ``regular and understandable feedback,'' Angelo said.
Encourage professors to experiment. ``Effective faculty members are not afraid to fail,'' Seldin said. ``When I try something new, I get worse for a while before I get better. What we need to make is some safe places where (all professors) . . . can practice and afford to get worse before they get better.''
The seminar was sponsored by the Virginia Tidewater Consortium for Higher Education and the National University Teleconference Network, both based at ODU. by CNB