Learning is a permanent change in long-term memory. Part of this change involves understanding course material as distinct from memorizing it. When students learn, they not only know the facts, but recognize the significance of those facts within a larger whole: according to reasons that support or detract from a claim, practical consequences, or implications for other views. Central to the definition of learning as long-term change is recall. A teacher’s burden is not lifted when course material is presented; rather, she is responsible for returning to material in staggered intervals and in different ways. Students’ expectations change accordingly and, hopefully, so does their long-term memory. \
My courses, including teaching style, choice of content, expectations for students, and evaluations, are designed around two principles, which are inspired by the ancients and supported by today’s research. First, students’ willing and transparent engagement with a teacher is the ideal classroom environment. One technique that has remarkably changed the dynamics of my class time is cold calling. It is typically used to check students’ understanding of material they were assigned before class or of material presented in class. With this technique, a teacher asks a question, then calls on someone by name to answer. So, `What is virtue…Courtney?’ No one is called on punitively; rather, everyone expects to be called on at some point. In this way, they are prompted to engage. I use cold calling to increase class participation, to shape the expectations students have when they sit in class, to solidify the material being discussed, to check for misunderstandings, and to establish a culture of error in the classroom (which I discuss momentarily). Cold calling has been a key technique in approximating the ideal classroom environment. \
Another technique that encourages student engagement is to create a culture of error in the classroom. Students feel safe making mistakes and discussing them when a culture of error is set up. A student is never chided for a mistake; their response is valuable even if it is wrong or seems irrelevant. Sometimes, a mistake helps me address a misunderstanding that others in the class may have. And, at other times, I can follow the implications of an erroneous view to show why it is wrong. Most importantly, though, it helps me gauge how course content is being received: whether the pace of the class should be sped up or slowed, whether upcoming assignments are too easy or too difficult, where students’ interest lie, and what material should be returned to. These two techniques are not exhaustive, but they have become central to my teaching. \
A second principle that guides my course design is that talking about material is not the same as teaching that material. This requires the structure of my classes to be flexible. Lecturing is no doubt important, but in itself it is a limited way for enabling students to learn. While I lecture every class, I do so for no longer than twenty-five minute stretches. A lecture may be broken by a short exercise, such as giving the class a prompt to respond to with no more than a sentence. Or, I may cold call, reviewing material just presented, material presented a week or a month ago, or as a way to begin a longer discussion around pivotal questions the lecture brings out. By diversifying how material is approached, lectures are reinforced in the classroom instead of singly through assignments afterwards. My goal for every class is to change students’ perspectives for the purpose of enriching their views and I employ many pedagogical techniques to foster this goal. \
Ryan Phillip Quandt 