EVALUATE YOUR TEACHING
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans” – John Lennon.
It’s a curious thing. During the period between thinking about this piece and writing it, I saw a film that struck a chord. An unusually staged, wordy film, one of the characters was a teacher – an American political science professor (played by Robert Redford, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and brown cord jacket) – who was wrestling with both his role as a teacher and his own sense of purpose. It was all about the choices we make, the impact our decisions have on others, the line we draw in the sand.
Without regurgitating the script, the teacher had arranged to meet a talented but lazy student at 7.30am in his office to talk about why the student had drifted away. How he persuaded a lazy student to come in at 7.30am… is a different question. Anyway.
They sat and talked about life and what it’s for, about the role of the individual in society, about contribution and symbiosis. He didn’t so much haul him over the coals as talk to him about life and responsibility, accountability and maturity. Being a grown up in a society that wasn’t. They talked, they cried, they drank product-placement coffee, they agreed and disagreed and agreed again. Like I say, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and cord jacket.
The teacher was a mentor, a brother, a parent, a friend. He was the student’s inspiration, his conscience. It was, of course, a hugely idealised picture – it’s Hollywood, what do you want? - but it did set me thinking. What am I doing? Should I be like that?
Moving swiftly away from the idea of what my students might say if I suggested meeting at 7.30am - and moving even faster away from the idea of getting a cord jacket and blue denim shirt – what was there to learn? Maybe it was time to evaluate my teaching.
"Evaluation is not at heart about collecting evidence to justify oneself, nor about measuring the relative worth of courses and teachers. It is about coming to understand teaching in order to improve student learning."
(Ramsden 1992)
A year ago, the idea of writing a piece entitled “Evaluate Your Teaching” would have been ridiculous. A letter sent to the wrong address. I was a writer, a freelance writer. I’d done a bit of guest lecturing, but that was different. That’s performance. You go in, give a bit show, tell a few war stories and waltz off clutching a cheque. I was, to use a word that has suddenly entered my world, a practitioner. But that was then.
Now I’m a full time lecturer. Not only that, I’m also a student – and that truly is an irony - doing a course called something like How To Become A Proper Teacher and I’m writing an essay about what it’s like to be a teacher. How can I evaluate my teaching if I’m not a teacher? What do you mean I’m a teacher? When did that happen? How did that happen?
A Period Of Self-Reflection
And you may ask yourself “Well...How did I get here?”
I never really intended for this to happen. I didn’t wake up one morning and say to myself “Jed, it’s time to give something back. It’s time to become a teacher”. What happened was this: I woke up one morning and the phone rang. And then I became a teacher. A part-time teacher – a “point five” – for three months.
There was no training, no explanation, no nothing. Just “You start at 10am. They’re second years, you’ll be fine”. It was all true. We did start at 10am, they were second years and I was fine.
I always tell my students “It’s OK. Go ahead and think about career plans and structures and have a goal in mind, but the reality is that you’ll go where the wind blows you, that opportunities will come from the most unexpected sources’. And they all look at me.
Well, my wind blew me to Eastbourne. And – a year later - I’m a full-time permanent member of staff with a pension and a purple car sticker.
I can laugh to myself at all this and stroke my beard and play “I’m a professor” and all that, but to the students this is real. And if it’s real to them, then it’s real to me and it’s time to evaluate my teaching.
The first question is this: Am I a lecturer or a teacher? Give up. No idea. Is there a difference? No idea. Am I a lecturer? God no. The idea that I’m one of those people who stand in front of a lectern in a hall, talking with the aid of maybe Powerpoint presentations of, at least, an overhead projector… Not a chance. Do I teach? Well, I hope so, but I’m not sure that’s the biggest part of it.
I teach the students in the same way that I teach my kids: I tell them about life, about what I’ve learned about life.
A lot of the time I try to be a mixture between Robert Redford (with a few superficial but not, to me, insignificant differences) and a best mate. I was the first lecturer at my School to have a Facebook account, I’m the only lecturer to get invited to their parties. I’m the one who plays Scrabulous online with them.
What I Want
I went to college in Manchester. There were many reasons why I went there. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and lacking in any substance. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – and I liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special.
I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does when, in the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university. By then I didn’t care.
I’m not sure I can remember much about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Mick, Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, Gas Panic, the Afflecks Palace.
I was, very probably, the worst student in the world. I could get a place on the new ITV show Celebrity Worst Student In The World if there was such a show. Or I was a celebrity. I never went to class, never did what I was supposed to do.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers.
I’m still in touch with Mick, so I called him up. We spoke. I explained my situation and he told me about one of our lecturers called Phil Mole.
“Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever.
“Phil Mole. He…. Had a beard.”
In a sense, I want to be Phil Mole, but I want to be more than that. Phil was good enough to enthuse the second worst student in class. I want to be Phil Mole plus one.
Can I Do It?
It’s all very well wanting to be that Hollywood archetype, the inspiring teacher, but outside of The Dead Poets Society, can it happen?
As part of this course, we are supposed to do a “peer observation” where our teaching is observed and we observe someone else’s teaching. Naturally, we observed each other. The Wisconsin Peer Review website talks about peer review and how it can be done. However… as chance would have it one of the other ‘students’ on this course is not only a fellow Sport Journalism lecturer at Chelsea, but also an old mate.
“Jed’s personal touch was apparent from the outset, the rapport he has with the students admirable and palpable. He creates a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning and working.
At the start of the session he set the students a task – previewing a football match for a tabloid newspaper and supplying the headline and photo, via Quark Express. The idea of the preview actually came from a student, which demonstrated Jed’s willingness to respond to the class’s desires and hence make the work more suitable. This type of exercise brings them a taste of life in a busy newsroom. The fact that they had only 45 minutes to complete the task gave it an added element of verisimilitude.
Jed’s explanation of what was required was clear and precise. He used large screens at either end of the newsroom (which was packed) to demonstrate what was wanted, resisted overburdening the class with theory, asked if there were any questions, then left the students to their own devices. This in turn meant that he could go round to each student in turn to find out how they were getting on, clarify any issues and give pertinent tips. In turn, the students were not in the least disruptive, and simply got on with their work.
Overall, I felt that this was an ideal approach to the subject. It struck a balance between instruction, practical application, flexibility and professional relevance.”
That was, I felt, a fair appraisal. It was also what I would have wanted to hear. I’m sure that, for the most part, my lectures aren’t a chore. I’m sure that, of all their lectures, mine aren’t the ones they dread.
Hounsell (2003), Gibbs and Habeshaw (1988) and University of Kent (2004) outline a range of ideas for getting feedback from students. My feedback has come from rather more unorthodox routes, but I feel that they are just as valid – if not more so.
When my initial part time contract ended, I had to re-apply for the permanent position. I applied, got short-listed and had an interview. It was then that I found out that the students had signed a petition asking that I be given the job.
The M&E (Module and Evaluation) forms that the students fill in at the end of the year were positive, too. These forms – written anonymously, supposedly unseen by lecturers – are the nearest thing the students have to a right of reply. I skirted the rules and had a look and, generally, the students were very positive.
Further evidence that the students like my classes came last week. A senior lecturer appeared in my course leaders office, face like thunder. In his hand he had a piece of paper with a list of names of students who had repeatedly been missing his classes. “What’s happened to these students?” he demanded to know. “Have they left?”
I was a little embarrassed – and OK, a little smug – to explain that they were all in the newsroom writing a paper for me as we spoke.
But Is It Any Good?
So OK, great. We get on and they like me. It might even mean that maybe – just maybe – I might get to be their Phil Mole. But does that mean my lectures are any good? Does all that mean though that my lectures are the ones that are the most use? That’s a different question.
The communication part of the job is, for me, easy Chatting and getting on with people. The subject matter also makes it easy. I teach News Writing, Advanced Sports Journalism and Multi Media Journalism. These are the practical modules, the ones where students get to do the things that they signed up to do back when they were school kids. We watch football matches and write match reports – not hard work, whichever way you bend it
We talk, we chat, we play. To use the student word of the moment, we banter. We make fun of each other, we tease each other. I make fun of their shoes, they make fun of mine. I don’t know if what I do is any good.
I never formally trained to be a teacher. I never even gave it any thought. It was all
“Here are the keys to the car. Off you go”.
“Lovely, thanks. What are those pedals for?”
Whoooosshhhh. Crrrrrraaaaassssshhhhhh.
“Oh, I see. That’s what happens when you do that.”
I made it up as I went along. I had – I have – the advantage of teaching something that I’ve spent the best part of 20 years doing, so I know the subject. What I don’t know – or what I’m not sure about – is how to teach.
Going back to the Redford film, it showed the bright but lazy student in the first year when he was simply a bright student. We saw Redford giving a lecture about drug addicts and talking about clinics where junkies could be given methodone to help them with their addiction. This was held up as the action of a responsible, caring society. All the students nodded in agreement. All except the bright student who said “That’s ridiculous. You might as well have state-sponsored drunkard’s lanes on the highways!” Apart from the fact that it’s a fantastically stupid thing to say and if this was an example of the bright student’s brightness then God help the stupid students…
Anyway. It was what followed that struck me. There was a vigorous, discussion where students were engaged with each other and the subject. People were getting angry, throwing opinions around, caring, being erudite, informed, passionate.
Would anything like that happen in one of my classes? Hang about a minute – I’ll go and ask that pig flying past the window.
The Other Stuff
I heard someone – a quite senior lecturer – say the other day “This job would be easy if it wasn’t for the students”. It was possibly meant as a joke, but then again… possibly not. I feel completely the opposite. It’s the other stuff - the stuff that happens around the students – that weighs heavy.
Marking weighs me down .I’m not experienced enough to do it quickly – to drive through the shortcuts – and so it takes a ridiculously long time. So I don’t get enough done. And the more I don’t get enough done… the further behind I fall. The students see this and, while we get round it because we’re mates an have a laugh, it’s not as good as it should be. Again, it cuts both ways. I know at I put a lot more into my work than others, but because I haven’t been doing this very long and I’m still writing my lecture notes as I’m going along and… and… and… it takes me a long time.
The consequence is that I don’t give things enough time – because there isn’t enough time. I don’t give individuals enough time. I don’t give this course enough time.
While a lot of that is down to time management and recognising how long things take – something that only experience tells us - there’s a more fundamental truth going on, too. I’m a journalism lecturer and, a lot of the time, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know what I’m marking. OK, there are a group of students who, frankly, I wouldn’t trust to write a shopping list. “Is that really how you spell carrot?” But mostly, it’s OK. What they do is OK.
I’ve always been of the opinion that writing is an expressive form and that the right to say “This is good but that’s bad” is a dubious right at best. Clearly, the way that I write is best but to question – or worse, mark down – Student A because he or she doesn’t write or phrase things like I might is plain daft.
There’s a clear chasm between “that’s good” and “that’s no good”, but outside that? It’s a tough call. So I make up the difference by trying to inspire them. For example, there has recently been a Radio 4 series about newspapers, where they’ve been and where they’re going. I taped the shows, talked to the students about them and made the tapes available. Understanding the context, the history, the famous names… it’s all part of the job but at the same time, it’s not something that anyone else does.
It also bothers me that I’ve never been taught to be a teacher. Before I started this job… we’re going back a few years. I know how to write a feature, but do I know why I do what I do? Mostly I just do it. One of the modules I teach – multi-media – I’m only marginally more enlightened than the students. And even that’s not always true.
What helps me is that I have a credibility in their eyes in that I’ve been where they want to go, I’ve done what they want to do, I’ve been a successful sports journalist.
Conclusion - Where Do We Go From Here?
When I came to prepare for this essay, I gathered a number of evaluative documents regarding my course, for example Module Reports, an External Examiner’s Report and an Academic Health Report for both my area (Sport and Leisure Cultures) and the Chelsea School.
Hounsell (2003) points to four forms of feedback – self-generated, from students, from colleagues and incidental, which refers to other factors such as attendance. I feel I’ve dealt with all these forms, albeit in a discursive way, and feel that my teaching is improving as a result.
It’s a curious thing, but the process of this PgCLTHE course has also helped enormously. I got to know other lecturers from other schools and others disciplines and it was a fantastic relief to find out that, by and large, we were all concerned about the same things. Same things, different names.
While I’m still a long way from the Robert Redford character in that film – the inspiring mentor, the wise elder statesman, the cross between a teacher and a parent and a mate and a lover – I feel that I’m getting there.
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