Barbara Rogoff--Teaching Statement 2000-01
Professor, Psychology

Teaching small classes of 30 or 40 was a pleasure for me and for my students even before I got to UCSC. (I taught at the University of Utah for 15 years before coming here, teaching classes in cognitive development and cultural aspects of human development.) In small classes, my instructional approach has for many years prioritized helping students enter into intellectual discussion of key issues in the field, learn to bring evidence to bear on the issues, and explore varying perspectives on an issue with recognition that more than one perspective is often useful and justified by evidence. In my large classes, before coming to UCSC, however, I found little pleasure. Although my students thought my teaching was fine, I doubt they were particularly inspired or likely to remember much in later years. I followed a fairly standard format for my large class on Child Development: lectures most days, with a few films, and midterm and final exams made up of stock mulitiple choice and short essay questions. I tried to encourage discussion, but students seldom attended to what each other said and often seemed focused on getting things 'right.'

When I got to UCSC, I knew that I wanted to change my approach to instruction in large classes. My inspiration for changing my approach was partially based on my research in an innovative elementary school where the philosophy prioritizes teachers acting as guides rather than controllers of children's learning. In my small classes, I was able to engage with my students in a conversational fashion in which I could promote their learning through helping them explore ideas and the available research. But in my large classes, I had been taking a role that seemed more like policing the students' compliance than like entering into an intellectual endeavor. I was interested in moving my approach in large classes to one that more closely resembled how I taught my small classes.

Setting myself the challenge of transforming my way of handling large classes was also prompted by the atmosphere and supports of UCSC. I noted that my colleagues seemed committed to the importance of teaching and that my students seemed remarkably committed to learning.

I was immediately impressed, and continue to be, at the skill and interest with which UCSC students can learn from each other in classroom discussion, even in a class of 140. Usually their contributions build on the statements of those who commented before them, developing a real conversation in a large group. This contrasts with solo comments that often have little to do with each other but rather have the aim of showing the teacher, "Look what I know."

With UCSC students, I realized that the students themselves were a valuable resource for building the concepts of the course. Often issues that several students raise are of broad concern or interest for the rest of the class and help me realize what support I need to provide. In addition, a class is much more interesting when questions and issues are raised by several people rather than just a talking-head professor. I can't resist mentioning that I attribute a large part of the learning atmosphere at UCSC to the narrative evaluation system, which supports students in treating each other as resources for learning rather than obstacles to obtaining curved letter grades.

As I began to try to transform my approach to large class instruction, I found that the narrative evaluation system also supported my transformation to a guide rather than a police or judge of student learning. I gave more thought to what I wanted students to learn over the quarter and began to be much more up-front with the students about the goals of the course and of each assignment. I increasingly began to see the importance of helping them understand the goals of the course. Previously, I somehow felt that if I told them what was most important it would make it too easy for them to do well on the assignments, which they were being tested on to see if they 'got it.' Now, instead, I told them the reasons why I was emphasizing this or that and how the different assignments and lab exercises fit together.

My classroom preparation is to know the material and to have a list of a few key points that need to be addressed in one way or another (across the quarter and in each class session). The specific way they are covered is determined with the students, flexibly but with leadership, as the discussion unfolds. I enjoy building on student interests and student involvement in leading discussion and constructing more formal presentations. Since most topics can be covered in a variety of ways, I try to determine student interests and make use of student questions (oral and in writing) to organize the presentation of material so that students contribute. I enjoy weaving together the strands provided by the various participants in a class to produce the fabric of the key points. (A couple of students last quarter told me that they amused themselves watching me try to figure out how to bring the strands together, particularly when a student would turn the topic in a surprising direction.)

To teach students to articulate their own views as they examine and constructively critique the views of published scholars, I assign a great deal of writing and give feedback on the writing as if the student and I were having a conversation on the topic that the student has chosen to elaborate on. The use of twice-weekly writing assignments and discussion in class is an important aid to my teaching. I read a substantial proportion of each of the papers. In part this serves to guide the TAs regarding the important issues to evaluate at that point in the course and the sort of comments to provide to guide students' understanding.

Equally important is the function of informing me about what the students are puzzling over in the reading, what issues have grabbed their attention, and what they are ready to think about next. Understanding where the students are 'coming from' is essential to being able to help them move their understanding along-teaching is a form of communication that relies on an understanding of students' current understanding in order to help them make sense of the next idea. I usually rearrange and adapt the way I will handle my next presentation in light of what I learn from the students' writing and discussion.

I make use of some of the examples and questions that the students provide in their writing in order to get a presentation or discussion started. Often, especially early in the quarter, I have the students trade their one- to two-page papers and comment on something interesting in their classmate's writing. This gives them an idea of the ways that other students have handled the same assignment, helps them think about their writing as a means of communication of ideas to a real audience (not just the teacher), and gives them a response to their own writing from a peer. After they have read each other's papers, I ask for two or three students to report on something interesting that they read in the classmate's paper. This invariably gets students involved in discussing some of the ideas of the course and/or a presentation of key ideas from me, already connected with a topic identified as interesting by the student author and the peer reader.

In this way, even in a large class, there is student involvement in crafting the direction of the class session. At the same time, my role requires on-my-feet leadership, helping to channel the discussion and presentations to concepts and information that are central to the course. The philosophy is one of a community of learners, in which the students participate in a quarter-long conversation, contributing their ideas and questions, and I as teacher provide the overall structure of the main ideas and information and a general order based on what has worked with prior groups of students, but flexibly modified to fit the current group's interests and contributions.

I have learned to be wary of my own push to 'cover' great amounts of materialÑthe aim is the students' understanding and longterm learning, not my own marching through the material. I focus on the big ideas of the course and urge the students to work to understand the ideas rather than memorize the details. The course seems to be more effective for student learning as I have learned what matters most and keep trying to let go of shoving lots of information at the students.

At first when I tried my new approach to teaching a large class, the students were puzzled at the degree of involvement that I expected of them, as well as the structure of the course around discussion and writing rather than lectures and exams. Some of them floundered a bit in trying to understand this unusual structure of the class. However, once I explained to them that I was trying to teach a large class the way I would teach a small class, they became comfortable with the structure, as they had an idea of the 'script' that I was using and appreciated the effort to experiment with the format.

One of the most rewarding features of my foray into handling a large class like a small one is the opportunity to learn from my students. By engaging in an intellectual conversation with them across the quarter, I learn how to adapt the class to better fit with their interests and readiness to move along. In addition, I learn from them about new evidence that fits with the course themes-they bring in their reading from other courses in their papers, and they offer observations of their own that often prompt me to look at course topics from new and stimulating angles.

A central feature of my new approach to large classes is my change in attitude, giving priority to addressing the interested students and hoping thereby to inspire, rather than control, the rest. I find that if I let the students know what I expect of them and treat their efforts with respect, students who might otherwise be less involved are more likely to live up to the expectations.

I have found that if I phrase assignments in terms of how they will contribute to the students' understanding, rather than to comply with my authority, I leave the policing role behind and gain a collaborative guiding role. When some students do not live up to the expectations of the course, I try to find out if there is something that I or the TAs can do to help them get on track, but if that doesn't change things, I assume that such students are making their own choices and it is not my responsibility. I report their progress and effort in the quarter's evaluation, but I don't structure the course around roping them in. I focus on the students who are involved, and this helps create a classroom environment of respect and a focus on learning, which often attract students who did not expect to be interested in the class.

In thinking about the future of universities, I think that what we can do to prioritize the human aspects of instruction-as a form of intellectual conversation-will be extremely important for maintaining the heart of education, even as the university grows. Talking heads approaches will likely be more cheaply and perhaps more effectively handled through electronic means, returning the focus of teachers to guidance and communication. I expect that this is where universities will continue to need teachers and universities themselves will continue to be needed.