Years ago, one of my students was interviewed by the campus paper. She described how she fell in love with learning with me, a professor she described as in love with teaching. We eventually co-presented and published on this topic. What follows are key recommendations.

• Create a safe classroom culture free of disrespect and personal judgment. Discuss problems; not people. Classroom “rules” (parameters—understandings) can be brainstormed and negotiated with students. This is particularly important in a multicultural classroom. Learn what each of your students needs to feel safe.
• Like improvisational guidelines, say “yes, and …” to student contributions in class, and support your students when they participate and speak up. Co-create a meaningful, informative conversation.
• Do not lecture for more than fifteen minutes at a time. (Attention spans are shortening yearly. Passivity and learning are contradictory).
• Try dyad and small group discussion and activities to encourage the most reserved, insecure and shy students to speak up. Students love engaging with each other most. Give credit for lifting each other up. Leadership is taught through active participation, process observation, and reflective self-assessment.
• Use authentic assessments, in which students apply their learning to real world problems that interest and concern them.

I have taught undergraduate and graduate students from over eighty different countries at the University of Denver, Metropolitan State University, the University of California Berkeley, Oslo International Summer School, Cornell and Pepperdine’s Schools of Law, California State University Dominguez Hills and Pontiferco Catholic University Rio de Janeiro. I hope that the above recommendations serve you and your students as much as they have me and mine.

To follow up on any of these ideas, please contact me at fglazer@nyit.edu. This Weekly Teaching Note was adapted from a contribution to the Teaching and Learning Writing Consortium hosted at Western Kentucky University.

Contributor:
Nancy Erbe
Professor, Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding
California State University, Dominguez Hills