Teaching Philosophy
After 11 years working in industry, I have chosen to teach because of the profound impact that teaching can have on others' lives. While working in industry, I took every opportunity to teach whether in formal classroom settings or in informal "coaching" sessions. I find no greater job satisfaction than in assisting others to learn. My motivation to teach comes from a desire to help others and see students' excitement as they learn new concepts. I believe teaching is my way to make a positive difference in the world one student at a time.
My approach to teaching is based on the belief that my purpose at the university is to serve the students. This service focuses on the long-term best interests of the students, not only in classroom learning but also in career choice and life decisions. Serving students begins with respecting them as individuals who can make worthwhile contributions to my learning and others' learning. This type of respect also leads to taking a personal interest in my students so that they know that I value them. Taking a personal interest means treating students as whole people who have a life outside of class. Serving students means going beyond just teaching them the facts of economics to teach them how to learn, how to think, and how to help others do the same. It means challenging them to excel rather than simply survive. For me, there are several keys to serving students including knowledge, variety, enthusiasm, contact, relevance and high standards.
Knowledge
A prerequisite for good teaching is a solid understanding and thorough knowledge of the subject area. As I seek to respect my students, I desire to earn their respect by having something valuable to teach them. Although I may have the greatest pedagogy, I can do little more than entertain my students without something of substance to teach them. Therefore, I seek to have a firm grasp of the material, well beyond the textbook, so that I can explain the material in many different ways and provide additional examples and illustrations.
Much of my knowledge for the courses that I teach comes from real life experiences. In the areas of regulation and telecommunications, I have a wealth of actual work experience from which to draw. To remain current in this field, I have maintained a set of industry contacts through chairing a telecommunications conference. In other areas, I have sought examples from everyday life or developed a network of professionals with whom to discuss the material.
Variety
Variety in teaching methodology is important for two reasons. First, the subject matter or content of the course needs to guide the best teaching methods for that material. In course material on antitrust, I use whole class discussion to review cases with little if any lecture. Because the students have already read the cases and background, the class time is used most effectively by working together on economic reasoning. In more technical material such as telecommunications technology, I use more of a lecture format. Finally for teaching oligopoly theory, I use an in-class simulation exercise which I have designed to help students "experience" the theory.
The second reason that variety is important is that the students' academic abilities, background and learning styles vary such that different methods are most effective for different students. This is certainly the case between freshman and graduate students but it is also the case between students at the same level. Therefore, for each major concept, I try to explain the concepts by explaining it verbally, providing illustrations, discussing its implications, using visuals (including graphs), and working out numerical examples. In examinations, I try to include a mixture of multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions in each exam. I do not provide variety for variety's sake, but use variety as a tool to reach the widest possible audience with the subject material.
Enthusiasm
I believe that students must have an interest in a subject to learn it well and a primary source for that interest comes from the enthusiasm of the professor. I believe a teacher's passion for the subject is contagious if it is channeled in the right way. Enthusiasm can provide the motivation for students to learn the material.
While enthusiasm for the subject matter is important, enthusiasm for learning is also an important attitude to be modeled. I model this attitude by learning from my students in the classroom, showing that they have things to teach me. I also discuss with my classes new things that I have learned from newspaper articles or professional papers. Learning from my students and from reading generates an enthusiasm for learning that I hope is emulated.
Contact
Enthusiasm and a variety of teaching methods have limited effect if the students seldom see you outside of class. I try to maintain as much contact with my students outside of class as possible. To encourage questions, I maintain an open-door policy whenever I am in the office (usually 8-5, M-F). I find that students are most teachable when they seek you out to ask a question rather than at a predetermined time such as class or office hours. I also encourage e-mails and phone calls.
For each of my classes, I maintain an active, frequently updated web site with announcements, problem sets, answer keys, lecture notes and student papers. While not interactive, it provides another vehicle for me to communicate with my students outside of class.
Relevance
In all of my teaching, I try to provide real-world relevance. In the capstone course for the M.S. program, I simulate real-world situations for each of the exercises such as company presentations, group/team work, written reports, and regulatory testimony. I update these exercises based on input from students and supervisors in internships and talks with recent graduates. Graduate students are required to attend one-day workshops in Springfield, IL where they are exposed to the current issues facing industry. Also, graduates and outside speakers are brought in to reinforce the course material.
In other classes, I frequently have students read recent articles (1-2 months old) from the popular press or create realistic scenarios for situations in problem sets. My 11 years of corporate experience provides a wealth of real-world examples to draw upon for classroom illustrations.
High Standards
I believe that the purpose of an economics education is not simply to memorize a set of facts or a series of models but to use critical thinking and analytic reasoning to think as an economist. To accomplish this type of thinking, I assign frequent problem sets (weekly) so that students learn by doing. I seek to ask questions in class and on problem sets that require students to analyze a problem and reason rather than simply reciting a textbook answer.
To make the best use of classroom time for reasoning, students are required to prepare for each class with the background reading assignment. I often tell students at the beginning of class to summarize the reading and ask what they did not understand. Students are also required to read a lot of outside articles in addition to the main text for the course. This tends sharpen their reasoning skills as textbooks tend to simplify the material. Although I have gotten negative feedback from students about the large volume of material that I require them to read, I still believe that it is in their best interest to do so.
Future Teaching Goals
As a younger faculty member, I recognize that I have a lot to learn about good pedagogy. In fact, I hope to be a lifelong learner in how to be a better teacher. I began this process by being both a presenter and participant in several University Teaching Workshops (UTW). My presentation at the Fall '97 UTW is contained in Appendix 11. I also attended the Center for the Advancement of Teaching's Summer Institute on Critical Thinking during the summer of 1997. The acceptance letter and certificate of participation for the Institute are also in Appendix 11. I also attended several department workshops delivered by award-winning teachers on active learning and use of technology in the classroom. I have been mentored by Jack Chizmar, who has won numerous awards for teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning, through an Instructional Technology Literacy Mentoring Project Grant. I was also awarded a peer-reviewed Instructional Technology Development Grant titled "Providing an Understanding of Telecommunications Technology By Incorporating Multimedia into Economics 235." Information on these two grants can be found in Appendix 12.
My short-term goals for improving my teaching this year are to have my
lectures videotaped and peer-reviewed, to write materials for my classes
where suitable material is lacking, and to formally assess my teaching
performance to determine if what I am doing is effective. My long-term
goals are to investigate the further effective use of technology in learning,
to obtain more formal training through a short course or conference, and
to read more books and journals about teaching.
Links
Copyright © 2004 David G. Loomis
URL: http://www.ilstu.edu/~dloomis/