Ask HN: Learning How to Teach
11 comments
Greg Wilson has a couple of books on this:
- "How to Teach Programming (And Other Things)"[0]
- "Teaching Tech Together", newer edition of aforementioned book.[1]
These books delve into how to conduct lessons, what to concentrate on, what to optimize for, how to construct quizz questions with embedded diagnostic capability so you not only see who gets it wrong or right, but on which concept/part they get it wrong.
There is another book "How Learning Works" by Ambrose et al.[2]
[0]: https://third-bit.com/2017/05/31/how-to-teach-programming.ht...
[1]: http://teachtogether.tech/ [there are two versions, English and Spanish]
[2]: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/How+Learning+Works%3A+Seven+Rese...
- "How to Teach Programming (And Other Things)"[0]
- "Teaching Tech Together", newer edition of aforementioned book.[1]
These books delve into how to conduct lessons, what to concentrate on, what to optimize for, how to construct quizz questions with embedded diagnostic capability so you not only see who gets it wrong or right, but on which concept/part they get it wrong.
There is another book "How Learning Works" by Ambrose et al.[2]
[0]: https://third-bit.com/2017/05/31/how-to-teach-programming.ht...
[1]: http://teachtogether.tech/ [there are two versions, English and Spanish]
[2]: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/How+Learning+Works%3A+Seven+Rese...
I recommend the book The Technology of Teaching by B.F. Skinner.
The main idea of the book is that teaching is all about breaking the concepts into small chunk and having the student test those chunks in a way that provides immediate feedback.
A great part of learning happens in the individual, so having him interact with the concepts is the most important thing.
The main idea of the book is that teaching is all about breaking the concepts into small chunk and having the student test those chunks in a way that provides immediate feedback.
A great part of learning happens in the individual, so having him interact with the concepts is the most important thing.
Mind of numbers is what I am using to understand learning. There is also a course on this on Coursera. Check it out. It's too rated
You might like 5 Elements of Effective Thinking, too.
A wrote a tutorial on this not too long ago: https://simpleprogrammer.com/5-principles-great-programming-...
My experience is college-level teaching and faculty mentoring.
There's a huge literature of both popular and scholarly books on developing effective teaching. You can look into the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to find lots of references. Most colleges and universities have Centers for Teaching, and their pages will usually contain resources intended to help new professors and grad students get better at teaching.
If I had to recommend one book, I'd go with Small Teaching by James Lang. It's accessible and rooted in learning science, with an emphasis on techniques and tips you can begin incorporating into classes right away. It builds on, rather than replaces, your existing pedagogy, and the techniques work across disciplines.
The area where most new professors struggle is in course organization. When you know something well, there's a tendency to see it as a gigantic blob of interconnected content. To teach effectively, you have to set overarching goals (at the course level, unit level, and even daily class meeting level) and design your activities to support those goals. The general term for this approach is "backwards design" and the standard text is Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe. It's aimed at K-12 education but everything in it applies to other levels.
The dominant trend in pedagogy, for the past decade, has been the movement away from lecture-dominated presentations and towards active learning. Classes should include a combination of short presentations on content, but supplemented with quick discussions, hands-on activities, or conceptual check-ins to make students engage with the material while it's being presented. Lang's book has a bunch of techniques, and any search for active learning will turn up more ideas. From a scholarly perspective, Carl Wieman's work on physics education has been highly influential.
For teaching across the organization, I'm familiar with work on how faculty cultures around teaching evolve, and how faculty adopt new practices. The key seems to be having small groups of colleagues that trust each other and share tips and advice.
Last point: assessment is another layer that you may or may not care about. If you do, think about how to integrate assessment into the design of your course to support the overall learning outcomes. Wiggins and McTighe describe different kinds of assessments that are appropriate for different part of the class (e.g. daily formative assessments vs. unit or course-level summative assessments). A starting point for thinking about effective assessment is Bloom's Taxonomy, which lays out a hierarchy of complexity for different assessment tasks. I'm a big believer in Specifications Grading, where almost everything is assessed on a two-level satisfactory/unsatisfactory scale.
Teaching is a big part of my life, so let me know if you have follow-up questions and I'll do my best to answer.
There's a huge literature of both popular and scholarly books on developing effective teaching. You can look into the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to find lots of references. Most colleges and universities have Centers for Teaching, and their pages will usually contain resources intended to help new professors and grad students get better at teaching.
If I had to recommend one book, I'd go with Small Teaching by James Lang. It's accessible and rooted in learning science, with an emphasis on techniques and tips you can begin incorporating into classes right away. It builds on, rather than replaces, your existing pedagogy, and the techniques work across disciplines.
The area where most new professors struggle is in course organization. When you know something well, there's a tendency to see it as a gigantic blob of interconnected content. To teach effectively, you have to set overarching goals (at the course level, unit level, and even daily class meeting level) and design your activities to support those goals. The general term for this approach is "backwards design" and the standard text is Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe. It's aimed at K-12 education but everything in it applies to other levels.
The dominant trend in pedagogy, for the past decade, has been the movement away from lecture-dominated presentations and towards active learning. Classes should include a combination of short presentations on content, but supplemented with quick discussions, hands-on activities, or conceptual check-ins to make students engage with the material while it's being presented. Lang's book has a bunch of techniques, and any search for active learning will turn up more ideas. From a scholarly perspective, Carl Wieman's work on physics education has been highly influential.
For teaching across the organization, I'm familiar with work on how faculty cultures around teaching evolve, and how faculty adopt new practices. The key seems to be having small groups of colleagues that trust each other and share tips and advice.
Last point: assessment is another layer that you may or may not care about. If you do, think about how to integrate assessment into the design of your course to support the overall learning outcomes. Wiggins and McTighe describe different kinds of assessments that are appropriate for different part of the class (e.g. daily formative assessments vs. unit or course-level summative assessments). A starting point for thinking about effective assessment is Bloom's Taxonomy, which lays out a hierarchy of complexity for different assessment tasks. I'm a big believer in Specifications Grading, where almost everything is assessed on a two-level satisfactory/unsatisfactory scale.
Teaching is a big part of my life, so let me know if you have follow-up questions and I'll do my best to answer.
While my experience with teaching is next to nothing: informal mentoring at work and classroom teaching when I was myself a student, teaching younger classes (maths and science), I do feel that on the long run, it might be my calling. Every occasion where I was part of such an activity, I enjoyed it and seemed to be well liked by the students. However, of late, I have growing doubts about my ability and having the patience necessary for it. Also of course, classroom control seems to be something I don't have an aptitude for (or so says my self-talk). I don't know why but I have a lot of negative thoughts about my prospects in this area. Do you have any suggestions for how one can test the waters or in some way figure out if it's something one can do on the long run without feeling miserable?
I'm not really motivated much by material rewards but I love sharing what I know but I fear that with the passage of time, my patience for anything in general diminishes and with that, my confidence too...
I'm not really motivated much by material rewards but I love sharing what I know but I fear that with the passage of time, my patience for anything in general diminishes and with that, my confidence too...
My first experience was teaching a summer CS course for high school students. They came from around the state to the campus where I was a grad student for three weeks and we met for a total of about six hours every day. I did that for five summers and it was a great experience: very relational with small classes, but a lot of freedom and low pressure. It allowed me to get all of the standard first-time mistakes out of the way before I taught my first college classes.
I think you've hit on one of the main challenges of teaching as a profession: the good parts, like building relationships with engaged students, have to exist in a system with less-good parts, like tedious administrative work and grading. I don't have to worry about classroom control in my courses, but it's one of the hardest parts of K-12 teaching, depending on the school.
My advice is to just look for opportunities to get in the classroom (which might be virtual) and learn as you gain experience. If you are comfortable teaching in person right now, look at libraries, maker spaces, science centers, or any other public space that offers STEM-related programming. Virtual teaching can be harder (all of my classes are hybrid this semester), but there are platforms like Outschool than can allow you to offer your own small courses.
I think you've hit on one of the main challenges of teaching as a profession: the good parts, like building relationships with engaged students, have to exist in a system with less-good parts, like tedious administrative work and grading. I don't have to worry about classroom control in my courses, but it's one of the hardest parts of K-12 teaching, depending on the school.
My advice is to just look for opportunities to get in the classroom (which might be virtual) and learn as you gain experience. If you are comfortable teaching in person right now, look at libraries, maker spaces, science centers, or any other public space that offers STEM-related programming. Virtual teaching can be harder (all of my classes are hybrid this semester), but there are platforms like Outschool than can allow you to offer your own small courses.
Thank you so much for responding to me and for the advice. Much appreciated! I'll try and find a way to make something happen.
Check out What the Best College Teachers Do and What The Best College Students Do by Ken Bain.
Check out Lockhart's Lament.
I think teaching requires a set of skills like presentation skills or change management but I'm curious if someone described the whole activity with advices how to get better at it.