Improving the Quality of Education

We may define good teaching as instruction thatintervals, and by the end of the lecture they are
leads to effective learning, which in turn meanstaking in very little and retaining less. A classroom
thorough and lasting acquisition of the knowledge,research study showed that immediately after a
skills, and values the instructor or the institution haslecture students recalled 70% of the information
set out to impart.presented in the first ten minutes and only 20% of
The education literature presents a variety of goodthat from the last ten minutes (McKeachie 1999).
teaching strategies and research studies that validateStudents' attention can be maintained throughout a
them (Campbell and Smith 1997; Johnson et al. 1998;class session by periodically giving them something to
McKeachie 1999).do. Many different activities can serve this purpose
In the sections that follow, we describe several(Bonwell and Eison 1991; Brent and Felder 1992; Felder
strategies known to be particularly effective.1994a; Johnson et al. 1998; Meyers and Jones 1993),
Write instructional objectives.of which the most common is the small-group
Instructional objectives are statements of specificexercise. At some point during a class period, the
observable actions that students should be able toinstructor tells the students to get into groups of
perform if they have mastered the content and skillstwo or three and arbitrarily designates a recorder
the instructor has attempted to teach (Gronlund(the second student from the left, the student born
1991; Brent and Felder 1997). An instructionalclosest to the university, any student who has not
objective has one of the following stems:yet been a recorder that week). When the groups
• At the end of this [course, chapter, week,are in place, the instructor asks a question or poses a
lecture], the student should be able to ***short problem and instructs the groups to come up
• To do well on the next exam, the studentwith a response, telling them that only the recorder is
should be able to ***where *** is a phrase thatallowed to write but any team member may be
begins with an action verb (e.g., list, calculate, solve,called on to give the response. After a suitable period
estimate, describe, explain, paraphrase, interpret,has elapsed (which may be as short as 30 seconds
predict, model, design, optimize,…). Theor as long as 5 minutes-shorter is generally better),
outcome of the specified action must be directlythe instructor randomly calls on one or more students
observable by the instructor: words like "learn,"or teams to present their solutions. Calling on
"know," "understand," and "appreciate," whilestudents rather than asking for volunteers is essential.
important, do not qualify.If the students know that someone else will
Following are illustrative phrases that might beeventually supply the answer, many will not even
attached to the stem of an instructional objective,bother to think about the question.
grouped in six categories according to the levels ofActive learning exercises may address a variety of
thinking they require.objectives. Some examples follow.
1. Knowledge (repeating verbatim): list [the first five• Recalling prior material. The students may
books of the Old Testament]; state [the steps in thebe given one minute to list as many points as they
procedure for calibrating a gas chromatograph].can recall about the previous lecture or about a
2. Comprehension (demonstrating understanding ofspecific topic covered in an assigned reading.
terms and concepts): explain [in your own words the• Responding to questions. Any questions an
concept of phototropism]; paraphrase [Section 3.8 ofinstructor would normally ask in class can be directed
the text].to groups. In most classes-especially large ones-very
3. Application (solving problems): calculate [thefew students are willing to volunteer answers to
probability that two sample means will differ by morequestions, even if they know the answers. When the
than 5%]; solve [Problem 17 in Chapter 5 of thequestions are directed to small groups, most students
text].will attempt to come up with answers and the
4. Analysis (breaking things down into their elements,instructor will get as many responses as he or she
formulating theoretical explanations or mathematicalwants.
or logical models for observed phenomena): derive• Problem solving. A large problem can
[Poiseuille's law for laminar Newtonian flow from aalways be broken into a series of steps, such as
force balance]; simulate [a sewage treatment plantparaphrasing the problem statement, sketching a
for a city, given population demographics and wasteschematic or flow chart, predicting a solution, writing
emission data from local manufacturing plants].the relevant equations, solving them or outlining a
5. Synthesis (creating something, combining elementssolution procedure, and checking and/or interpreting
in novel ways): design [an elementary schoolthe solution. When working through a problem in
playground given demographic information about theclass, the instructor may complete some steps and
school and budget constraints]; make up [aask the student groups to attempt others. The
homework problem involving material covered in classgroups should generally be given enough time to think
this week].about what they have been asked to do and begin
6. Evaluation (choosing from among alternatives):formulating a response but not necessarily enough to
determine [which of several versions of an essay isreach closure.
better, and explain your reasoning]; select [from• Explaining written material. TAPPS
among available options for expanding production(thinking-aloud pair problem solving) is a powerful
capacity, and justify your choice].activity for helping students understand a body of
The six given categories are the cognitive domainmaterial. The students are put in pairs and given a
levels of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educationaltext passage or a worked-out derivation or problem
Objectives (Bloom 1984). The last threesolution. An arbitrarily designated member of each
categories--synthesis, analysis, and evaluation--arepair explains each statement or calculation, and the
often referred to as the "higher level thinking skills."explainer's partner asks for clarification if anything is
Well-formulated instructional objectives can helpunclear, giving hints if necessary. After about five
instructors prepare lecture and assignment schedulesminutes, the instructor calls on one or two pairs to
and facilitate construction of in-class activities,summarize their explanations up to a point in the
out-of-class assignments, and tests. Perhaps thetext, and the students reverse roles within their pairs
greatest benefit comes when the objectives coverand continue from that point.
all of the content and skills the instructor wishes to• Analytical, critical, and creative thinking.
teach and they are handed out as study guides priorThe students may be asked to list assumptions,
to examinations. The more explicitly students knowproblems, errors, or ethical dilemmas in a case study
what is expected of them, the more likely they willor design; explain a technical concept in jargon-free
be to meet the expectations.terms; find the logical flaw in an argument; predict
Use active learning in classthe outcome of an experiment or explain an
Most students cannot stay focused throughout aobserved outcome in terms of course concepts; or
lecture. After about 10 minutes their attention beginschoose from among alternative answers or designs
to drift, first for brief moments and then for longeror models or strategies and justify the quality.