Reflections on a Teaching Conference Gone Wrong

This weekend I went to a one day teaching conference hosted by a college in the same metropolitan area where I work. I am purposely being vague because what I have to say is not specific to the college that was hosting the conference (though the speakers were faculty there) but more about the culture and ideas that were presented at the conference.

The main purpose of the conference was to bring together college teachers who teach part-time at the eight colleges in the greater metropolitan area. These teachers teach anything from pre-service firefighting to nursing to early childhood education.  This post is my attempt to work through some of the overtly problematic things I heard from presenters and responders during this conference. I had to give myself a couple of days distance from the conference itself so that I could ponder the implications of some of the things mentioned, for to be honest on my way home from the conference that day I was  excessively disillusioned  and disappointed.

One of the things I realized quickly is that part-time at this conference did not necessarily mean teaching continuing education classes, in the evenings, to predominately mature students, as has been my experience. Most of the teachers there taught part-time but in the day time and thus their demographic was more of a traditional college student in their 20s fresh out of high school. I have also taught university level students of that age range so I could relate to some of the things they mentioned but in general I felt that a focus on mature students was direly lacking at this conference.

Coaching

The keynote speaker focused on the concept of being a classroom coach. Her talk was one of the only non-STEM focused talks of the day and it was refreshing to hear someone speak who has a background in teaching English and literature.  She discussed the importance of creating trust in the classroom and I truly believe in the need for trust and the need for instructors to respect students to bring valuable ideas and learning to the classroom. The two main ideas I took away from her talk were: 1. A desire to have more interdisciplinarity in my assignments (to truly maximize my students’ interests and backgrounds in order to relate it to the material we cover in class) and 2. an aspiration to tweak the kinds of peer review that my students do in class so that it increases communication between students.

There were however some things that the keynote speaker mentioned and suggested that I really felt were problematic and would not work for many of the classes and students I teach.  One of the strategies she suggested was to ask every student when and where they will do their homework as a way to make them realize how much work is involved and then consequentially cause them to actually do the work.  Personally, I believe this is a tad intrusive, especially for mature students who will probably find it offensive that a teacher is asking where they do their homework and at what time of day they intend to complete their work. Every student’s schedule is different and they should not be made to feel as though if they do their homework at 2am because that is the only time they have after their children are asleep, they are somewhat less than an ideal.

The one strategy the keynote mentioned that I really had a problem with is: “when students ask you a question, you should ask them a question back.” All I keep envisioning was some strange psychoanalytic class environment where class time was spent asking rounds of “But how does that make YOU feel?”

I understand the pedagogical importance of asking students questions in order to get them to engage with the material and think about larger critical and analytical concepts, but an outright refusal to answer questions and responding with a question in return is a recipe for frustration and dissolution of the trust that needs to be built. 

More Coaching, Now with Wikipedia

The next session I attended was about how to turn your position in the classroom from lecturer to learning coach. I knew this session would not be the pedagogical gem I was looking for when the speaker admitted that he was “not an academic” in a derogatory way and then said that most of the things he would be speaking of he had Wikipedia’d the night before.  This is something I have written about before, how college instructors try to downplay academic work as not necessary or not something to be done at colleges.  Academic work happens in universities they say, which of course is ridiculous. Academic work can and should happen at all educational institutions. One of the ideas that he kept pairing with his “teacher-as-coach” idea (which I think is a great idea) is to see his students as “student-as-worker”(which I think is a horrible idea). I could not shake the sort of Marxist overtones that this “student as worker” model suggested.  

The speaker then said that most of the ideas he uses and presented to us are from an educational psychologist. This resorting to a psychological framework throughout the conference was again one that I found very disturbing. This I know is a personal opinion for psychology does not really have room in my pedagogy. I don’t feel I am there to psychoanalyze my students or subtly manipulate them (as witnessed by the speaker’s reference to and apparent reliance on a Hawthorne Effect). What I feel we are there to do, as pedagogues, is to guide and spark our students’ spirit of inquiry and thus inspire learning. Hawthorne effects wear out quickly, especially with adult learners, and more importantly with savvy learners panopticons are just a very tired ruse. If the students are not engaged, watching them like a hawk is not going to make them more engaged, it will make them check out more. You need to modify your pedagogical strategies to engage the students you are not reaching, it is not about checking up on them and asking them what they are looking at on their FB. It is about creating a space where they are so interested in class and the material being discussed that they do not want to check their FB.

What really started my disillusionment at this conference was the speaker saying “because as part-time teachers we really don’t have time to think about teaching” and having more than half the audience nod in agreement. Maybe I’m overly passionate about what I do as a teacher but if you don’t have time to think about your teaching: YOU SHOULDN’T BE TEACHING. He also went on to say that until recently he couldn’t manage to learn his students’ names each semester. The average class size is 35 students. This is something I find inexcusable and demonstrates a lack of attention and care for the educational environment.

Active Learning

In the active learning session the handout of suggestions as to how to group students for classroom activities read as something out of an elementary school hand book and not something appropriate for college-level students.  The leader of this session stated she started her teaching career as a grade 9 physical education teacher and I think many of the strategies she presented were from her experience with grade 9 students. That is not to say that one strategy would not work across the board, but it is important as educators that we are open to varying and adjusting our strategies for our particular classes and student needs/demographics.

Most of her textual references were from the early 90s and did not reflect changes in pedagogical ideas over the past 20 years.  The most recent reference was from 2002 and I all will say is the word God was in the title (and it was not a reference to a vague deity but rather a very squarely Christian God which I think is a good way to alienate any student you have that may not have Christian beliefs. )

Again the bigger problem I saw in this session is that her active learning activities all required some sort of tactile engagement or increased mobility on the part of the student.  This begs the question, what happens if a student cannot participate in these activities due to a disability? There was no mention of this in the session, no discussion of the need to adhere to AODA and how AODA is just good ethical practice put into writing.

Conclusions

 As you can see there were many things that were problematic at this conference and I have spent the majority of the week contemplating what, if anything, this means for the future of part-time college teaching.  It would be faulty logic to judge all teachers by the few speakers represented at the conference. However, I think what the conference did raise are very important questions about the academic culture being fostered in relation to part-time teaching at colleges. It isn’t okay for teachers to say, well this isn’t my real job and auto-pilot through class. I heard many attendees state that they haven’t done prep in three years because they teach the same classes every year. I truly find this outrageous. Even if I am teaching the same subject every semester, each semester I tweak, I revisit, I rework ideas so that I can maintain a high level of student engagement.   I am sure I am not the only one who does this. It is important for this kind of engagement and this kind of interest to be the face of pedagogy (college level, university level or any level), whether it be full-time or part-time. From an outside observer what the speakers at the conference presented this weekend was the worst kind of pedagogy; tired, apathetic.  I understand the complex economic reasons behind this kind of pedagogy and why it could be happening with high demands and low pay. However, I firmly believe our number one priority is and always should be our students.  Telling a group our peers we are “winging it” and laughing it off does nothing but foster a culture of indifference. We have to want better for our students and ourselves and this is why I will probably never return to that yearly conference. Nowhere did I see my passion for teaching reflected in the sessions or the discussion which is not what we should expect or want from a professional development teaching conference.