Teaching Techniques

I’ve been reading this book, Standards for Our Schools, that I picked up at the UCI bookstore. In it, the authors have a section where they compare American educational systems with that of the Japanese. Here, we argue for smaller class sizes and more personalized instruction for each student (<sarcasm>as if we can expect a teacher to be that flexible in technique and approach</sarcasm>), whereas in Japan they argue for larger class size! Given our methodology of teaching a larger class size would (and does) invariably leave some 1/3 of the class bored (top performers) or struggling (bottom performers). Here’s how the larger class works for our brethren overseas:

To illustrate the point, we will describe a typical Japanese math class. The teacher presents a problem at the beginning of the class and asks the students to work at the problem at their desks. The teacher circles the classroom with a clipboard, making notes on the different strategies the students are using to solve the problem. What she is looking for is an array of strategies that reflect different levels of sophistication. After she has collected what she believes to be a sufficiently varied set of strategies, she calls a halt to the individual work and begins to ask individual students, one at a time, to come to the chalkboard and share with the rest of the class the strategy he or she devised for solving the problem. Rarely does the teacher announce that the result of the strategy is wrong, even if it is patently wrong. To the contrary, the teacher is working hard to build student understanding of the reasoning underlying good solutions by exploring many different ways of getting both good and not so good answers. Everyone in the classroom knows — and does not need to be told — that a particular answer is wrong or right.

Because the teacher deliberately brings to the board students whose approaches represent different levels of sophistication, every student in the classroom has a chance to see someone using a strategy very like the one that he or she used. Thus the instruction is highly individualized, because each student gets to see the whole class discuss the strategy that student used. But unlike our approach to individualization, all the students are engaged all the time in the work of the whole class. Throughout, the emphasis is on understanding the concepts employed and on real mastery by all the students of each concept. It is education for thinking, the very opposite of the American stereotype of Japanese education.

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Jim Stigler has made extensize videotapes of both American and Japanese classroom teaching that vividly illustrate these points. We strongly recommend that you obtain these videos through the Web site established to support the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, which can be ordered through the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site.

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For the Japanese teacher, disaster consists in not having enough examples of different types of reasoning among her students. Large class size is more likely to produce a wider range of examples of different student strategies for solving the problem than small ones. The Japanese teacher is not particularly worried about boring the swift or leaving the slow behind because both can get quite a lot out of the instructional technique we have just described. The swift are not bored an the slow are not often left bewildered — despite the fact that there is no ability grouping!

I’ve had the opportunity to instruct both a second-course undergraduate class in data structures (ICS 22) and an upper division course in programming language concepts (ICS 141). I’ve noticed that about 1/2 my class is dozing off or distracted by their cellphones/laptops. I don’t blame them, I should focus more on entertaining presentation. However, the American lecture-style class organization does not do an effective job of maintaining student interest. (Our teaching advisor David Kay has mentioned that there are studies that show humans are really only able to pay attention in 20 minute intervals)

But I feel sad for the students that already know the material. If we had a rigorously standards and metric-based curriculum, then they would be able to test out of the class (and given full credit for their demonstration of concepts). Instead, the instruction is largely hands-off. Demonstrating, often with only one small example, the concepts or data structure that is needed for the homework assignment. And I’m fortunate to have inherited really, damn good programming assignments from my predecessor Alex Thornton. The real learning happens in those assignments. But is obviously more effective if (a) the student goes to the Lab, and (b) the Lab TA/tutor is knowledgeable and committed to student learning. However, we defeat ourselves, because after the first year of mandatory fundamental classes, has the lab sections have optional attendance. Also, we do not require the Lab TA to be a teacher of concepts: they usually walk around and help those individuals that look like they are struggling. Rather, the Lab could be run more like the Japanese instructional system described above. This would greatly assist the other students (I don’t want to label them slow) who didn’t pick up on the material in lecture, or are struggling with how to turn their ideas into working code.

Secondly, I’ve noticed that with these relaxed policies. The students who struggle continue doing so for their entire undergraduate career. I believe that there are several psychological reasons for this:

• Ey probably develops an ugh field around the homework or material.
• Ey allow that field to distract them with cellphone/laptop during class.
• Ey aren’t attending college of their own conviction. Rather, ey’ve likely just gotten in as the next step in life after high school.
• Ey don’t have experience with self-discipline, self-motivation or self-study. That is, ey don’t know about “getting things done” or “how to be more effective”.

Looking back at all this material, not only could we do a better job as educators, using more effective, scalable techniques, such as the Japanese. But, we should also require our students to go through at least one personal psychology class, so that they realize “work begats results” and it takes “10,000 hours to be an expert” and don’t get discouraged by thinking “that everyone else has it so easy”.