Title: Inspirational Teaching
1Inspirational Teaching
- Wynne R. Waugaman, CRNA, Ph.D.
- Associate Professor and Interim Chair
- Department of Nursing
- University of Southern California
2What is teaching?
- The intentional act of creating conditions that
can help students learn a great deal or keep them
from learning at all!
3Teachers Roles
- Mentor
- Listener
- Detective
- Scholar
- Liberator
- Exciter
- Community-builder
- Explorer
- Facilitator
- Philosopher
- Assessor
- Helper
- Encourager
- Coach
- Counselor
- Advisor
- Learner
- Humorist
4Students who learn are the finest fruit of
teachers who teach.
5What inspired you to become a teacher?
- I wanted to emulate a mentor/teacher whom I
admired! - I could do a better job than those who taught me!
- Other reasons????
6Grad Student Teaching Interest
- Teaching is not only for the student the teacher
benefits from the students questions and
perspectives. - Teaching helps to propagate the field!
7Grad Student Teaching Interest
- I will never forget how tough it is to be a
student and will carry these memories into my
teaching - The best way to know something is to be able to
teach it. - Teaching motivates one to keep updated.
8Grad Student Teaching Interest
- Being a student has made me realize once again
how much fun and how stimulating learning can be. - I would like to give back to the profession.
9Grad Student Teaching Interest
- Teaching helps to carry on the tradition of the
educational process I experienced here at USC.
10The Power of Mentors
- To awaken a truth within us.
- Mentoring is a mutuality between the right
student and the right teacher.
11Mentors and apprentices are partners in an
ancient human dance, and one of teachings great
rewards is the daily chance it gives us to get
back on the dance floor.P.J. Palmer (1998). The
courage to teach, p. 24.
12We must enter, not evade, the tangles of teaching!
13Sources of the Tangles of Teaching
- The subjects comprising nursing practice are as
large and complex as life, so our knowledge of
them is always flawed and partial. - The students we teach are larger than life and
even more complex requiring a pedagogical style
fusing Freud and King Solomon.
14Sources of the Tangles of Teaching
- We teach who we are!
- For better or worse, teaching emerges from our
inner self. - Teaching holds a mirror to the soul!
- Knowing oneself is as crucial to good teaching as
knowing our students and our subject matter.
15Teaching can be a fearful enterprise!
- Fear of students, fear of faculty colleagues, and
fear of administrators. - Academe offers many ways to protect ourselves
from the live encounter (a sequence of fears
which begins in the fear of diversity). - Faculty can hide behind their podiums, their
credentials, their power, and their academic
specialties!
16We fear change!
17Culture of Disconnection
- Undermines teaching and makes learning be driven
partly by fear. - Our Western commitment to think in polarities is
a thought form that elevates disconnection into
an intellectual virtue.
18The Student from Hell!
- Disconnection occurs when the students fear
shuts down the capacity for connectedness. - Describe a student who fits this description!
19The Results of Disconnection
20Broken Paradoxes of Education
- We separate theory from practice. Result
theories that have little to do with life and
practice that is uninformed by understanding. - We separate teaching from learning. Result
teachers who talk but do not listen and students
who listen but do not talk.
21Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique
good teaching comes from the identity and
integrity of the teacher.P.J. Palmer (1998). The
courage to teach, p. 10.
22The Good News
- We no longer need suffer the boredom felt when
teaching is approached as a question of how to
do it. - We no longer have to suffer the pain of having
our particular teaching style forced into the
current teaching method du jour (e.g. Web
courses, Power Point Presentations, etc.)
23The Bad News
- If we want to grow as teachers, we must risk
doing something alien to the academic culture
we must talk to each other about our self, our
identity, our inner lives. - We must experiment, stay open to new ideas rather
than protect ourselves behind the old and
familiar.
24Teaching Qualities Valued
- Openness and genuine caring for all.
- Unequivocal fairness.
- One who is not afraid to say when they do not
know the answer. - Organized and prepared.
- Subject expert.
25Teaching Qualities Valued
- Consistency and patience.
- The ability to trust the student and give up
control. - Approachability.
- Open to discussion.
- Sense of humor.
26Teaching Qualities Valued
- Enthusiasm and joy for the subject matter.
- Take an extremely difficult concept and simplify
it with examples, drawings, etc. - Always questioning authority should not
intimidate.
27Teaching Qualities Valued
- Willing to teach clinically without giving the
student the sense of burden of having a
student. - Faculty are only as good as the weakest link.
Teach us to be the best.
28Characteristics of Good Teachers
- A strong sense of personal identity infuses their
work. - Encouragement
- Enthusiasm
- Confidence
- Good listener
- Sharing personal experiences, especially clinical
examples
29Incorporating real-life experiences into
academic learning
- Clinical practicum experiences
- Professional/organizational experiences
- Community experiences
- Others??
30Characteristics of Good Teachers
- Possess a capacity for connectedness they weave
a complex web of connections among themselves,
their subject, and their students enabling the
students to weave their own fabric from what
theyve received. - Keep their hearts open to their students even in
difficult times.
31Teaching that Inspires/Motivates
- Positive reinforcement builds confidence.
- The enthusiasm of the instructor and the
applicability of information.
32Teaching that Inspires/Motivates
- Sharing their own personal experiences during
their time as a RN or student which reveals
humanism. - Seeing our alumni as teachers and knowing they
are still thirsting for professional knowledge.
33Teaching that Inspires/Motivates
- When the clinical instructor demands student
responsibility and/or accountability in the
clinical setting. - Involving the class in discussion and problem
solving
34Sex up Your Teaching
- Encourage creativity
- Encourage the search for more than one right
answer - Ask questions that solicit plural answers
- Encourage dialogue
- Ask what if questions
- Get in touch with the art of nursing
35Artist vs. Judge
- Encourage students to have their artist do its
job before bringing in their judge.
36Sex up Your Teaching
- Encourage creativity
- Encourage the search for more than one right
answer - Ask questions that solicit plural answers
- Encourage dialogue
- Ask what if questions
- Get in touch with the art of nursing
37If you give students conflicting
interpretations, they get to use their big,
bright brainsHave faith in the students
ability to think W. Bateman, (1990), Open to
question The art of teaching and learning by
inquiry, p.10.
38Sex up Your Teaching
- Encourage creativity
- Encourage the search for more than one
right answer - Ask questions that solicit plural answers
- Encourage dialogue
- Ask what if questions
- Get in touch with the art of nursing
39Vignettes Clinical or didactic experiences
where a teacher had a significant impact upon you
as the student.They can be negative or positive.
40Inspirational teaching requires the teacher to
bring his/her gifts to the classroom or clinical
setting!
41A Teachers Gifts
- A capacity to combine structure with flexibility
in both planning and leading each class or
clinical experience. - A thorough knowledge of the material and a
commitment to facilitating mastery among students.
42A Teachers Gifts
- Make curricular decisions that are guided by the
goal of student mastery and achievement rather
than an effort to cover the content. - A desire to help students build a bridge between
the academic text and their own lives by
providing a strategic approach.
43A Teachers Gifts
- Set the tone which explicitly and
self-consciously stresses values of unanxious
expectation (I wont threaten you but I expect
much of you.), of trust (unless abused), and of
decency (the values of fairness, generosity and
tolerance).
44A Teachers Gifts
- An ability to personalize teaching and learning
to the maximum it is feasible. - A respect for my students stories that is no
more or less than my respect for the scholarly
readings I assign them.
45A Teachers Gifts
- An aptitude for asking good questions and
listening carefully to my students responses,
not only to what they say, but also to what they
leave unsaid. - An ability to see my students lives more clearly
than they see themselves, a capacity to help them
look beyond the surface and see themselves more
deeply.
46A Teachers Gifts
- The ability to coach to provoke student
self-learning. - A willingness to take risks, especially the risk
of inviting open dialogue, though where it may
take us is unknown.
47Giving Back to the Profession
- Try to be the kind of teacher who is
knowledgeable, enthusiastic, confident, prepared,
and collegial. - Serving as a motivated clinical preceptor or
instructor.
48Giving Back to the Profession
- Volunteer my services in the clinical or didactic
area, wherever I am needed. - Attempting to be the best educator and thus leave
a lasting impression on the students.
49Giving Back to the Profession
- Carry on the tradition of advanced students
giving topical reviews on the weekends, offer a
workshop to help better prepare students for
clinical. - Be a professional role model.
50Giving Back to the Profession
- Be actively involved in the professional
organization to ensure the future is bright for
my peers and successors. - Sponsor students to professional events.
- Share knowledge with others.
51One who learns in order to teach will be granted
the opportunity both to learn and teach. One who
learns in order to do will be granted not only
the opportunity to learn and teach, but also the
opportunity to do and be fulfilled. Rabbi
Ishmael, Pirke Avot, IV6