Before I began teaching college full time three years ago, I had worked for 15 years as a teacher in both public and private schools, a school leader for 15 years in both public and private schools, and an adjunct professor for six years. I also managed a group home for disabled children and adults for eight years, which greatly influenced my work in education. During my years as a school leader, I believed it was important to continue to teach, so I developed a course where I taught brain-based study skills every day to high school freshmen, relying on 100 years of brain-based research. It was strongly reliant on the book, How We Learn by Benedict Carey, (Carey, 2015), and the YouTube personality, Thomas Frank, who started his YouTube channel about study skills in 2006.
This also gave me the unique opportunity to form a relationship with every student in the schools where I worked. I am confident that my instructional work as a teacher has supported my work as a professor, keeping me in touch with current trends and with the needs of students at all levels. Developmental concepts and theories are the foundation of any educational program, but if we don’t translate these concepts into practical applications, our future teachers will not be prepared to support their students in the best way they can. My objective in teaching is to give them practical tools and also to demonstrate best practices for instruction in my delivery of them.
Setting Clear Expectations
I completed my PhD in 2017 in Educational Leadership and Policy, and wanted to immediately put my degree and experience to good use, so I started teaching as an adjunct at my undergraduate alma mater. I first taught Child Development, and then predominantly Adolescent Development 18 times, which was a perfect fit for someone who had taught and worked as a school leader at this level for most of my career. I have always been a teacher, and I believe it’s my strength, no matter what the content or level is. As I complete my third year as a full-time college professor, and evidenced by the feedback I receive from my students, I still believe this to be true. I always set up my courses so the expectations are simple and clear, so students don’t have to use their energy to guess what will be happening or changing. It is my goal to make the content meaningful in our current world, so I constantly look for new ways to do this.
Building Student Relationships
Forming relationships with students and supporting them has always come very easy to me because I sincerely care about their success and preparing them to teach. I believe that working with students and being supportive, responsive, flexible and kind are not only in my nature, but a style that is supported by educational brain research. I develop every course on the foundational belief that if students feel safe, secure and supported, they will be able to take risks and do their best. I teach this and I try to live this. I believe that my school experiences help me present content in a meaningful and realistic way so that the students are as prepared as possible for their own classrooms.
My instructional strategies include discussion-based strategies such as the Harkness Method, which allows students to formulate questions and work in groups to prepare and present content. Research shows that students remember approximately 90% of what they teach, and only about 5% of what is “lectured” to them. Other instructional strategies I consistently use include small group discussions and presentations, critical thinking and application, personal reflection, technology via video sharing, chunking, hands on learning, demonstration, discovery learning, simulation and cooperative learning.
“Spaced Learning”
The most valuable assignments and strategies I use throughout the semester are based on the “chunking” or “spacing out” method which has also been called “distributed learning” especially as applied to their final paper. Brain research shows that the more time students spend on an assignment over time, the more successful they are, but more importantly, the more they absorb the content and make it their own on a deeper level. Benedict Carey uses this example in his book, “I like to think of the spacing effect in terms of lawn care in Los Angeles. … to maintain [a lawn] it’s far more effective to water for thirty minutes three times a week than for an hour and a half once a week…Same goes for distributed learning. You’re not spending any more time. You’re not working any harder. But you remember more for longer.” (Carey, 2015, p. 59). I love that you get more “bang for your buck” and can actually work less because you are working “smarter not harder.” (Carey, 2015). It’s magic!
This is a concept that originated with Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1913. I actually started using it as a high school student without knowing it was a brain-based method, because I didn’t like the anxiety that last minute work gave me. I’m convinced that if I could get students to use only one strategy to increase success and decrease anxiety, this would be it. As a college professor, you can arrange your assignments so they are required to do it; then they see how great it feels and how successful they are. Many students have developed patterns of procrastination so teaching them this method can be an uphill battle but the outcome is profoundly worth it.
Steps to Take in a College Course
When I am using this method in a college course, I separate the final paper into sections and spread them out throughout the semester. Students work on them individually and submit drafts, which I provide detailed feedback for. We also workshop these sections in groups, so they can learn from each other. By the time they hand in their final papers at the end of the semester, they are all of such high quality, and I can observe their growth as they learn about development and apply it specifically to the student they are observing in the classroom. In this course specifically, the final paper is a case study where they observe one student for 75 hours over the course of the semester and write about their observations and recommendations.
Last year I also added a first assignment in all my courses where each student writes a paper where they basically “regurgitate” the main components of the final paper. This sets up their brain and takes the guesswork out as to what the culminating assignment will be. It also frames their observational time in the classroom, because they are constantly aware of the “why” of what they are looking for when they observe their students and why looking at their development is important in assessing how best to meet their needs. They are extremely grateful for this for many reasons. Once their stress is decreased, their brains can function at a higher level and they can do their best work.
Looking Forward
For future courses, I am also adding a component where they dissect the rubric. Years ago when the NY State Common Core Tests began and I was an English teacher at a public middle school, I did something similar with the NY State rubric and had the students dissect it, present it and then grade other students’ sample papers; the entire faculty ended up using this. In my college classes, I am so heartened to read their final submissions because I see the lightbulbs and connections going off in their observations! I realize that sometimes my grades are on the high side, but I believe that is because I set my students up for success along the way. It’s difficult not to complete this assignment at the highest level unless you don’t submit it.
Some might think that I am doing too much “handholding” with my students, but I view it as mastery learning and my objective is to help them learn as much as they can on a deeper level and to be able to apply it. I am not trying to trick or stump them, and I know that the more time they spend immersed in meaningful content, the more it becomes a part of them that they will help them support their future students.
Spaced learning improves retention, benefits conceptual learning and encourages recall. Isn’t that what we all want as educators?
Dr. Mary Louise Stahl is currently an Assistant Professor at Niagara University in New York and also an adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia. She earned her PhD in Educational Leadership in 2016 from the State University of New York at Buffalo, with her dissertation, “Chinese Students in United States High Schools.” She has worked for over 30 years in education, as a teacher, a school leader, a college professor and a writer. In 2022 Rowman & Littlefield published her book, the Heart of School Leadership.
References
Carey, Benedict. How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens. New York: Random House. 2015.
Ebbinghaus, H. (1913). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology (H. A. Ruger & C. E. Bussenius, Trans.). Teachers College, Columbia University. (Original work published 1885).
Frank, Thomas. “13 Essential, Science- Backed Study Tips.” YouTube video. 12:33. 2019. Frank, T. (YouTube Channel). (2006). Thomas Frank [YouTube channel]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxv9lf5HjZM
