Blog Entry #10

This week's reading was part 6 (Teaching for Higher Level Goals) in McKeachie's Teaching Tips. In this entry, I focus on just a couple of the things I found interesting in this section.

Somewhat to my surprise, I thought the chapter on ethics was very informative. Often, when we think about ethics in education, we imagine obvious lines that should not be crossed. For example, an instructor should not pass a student who performed poorly but offers money. McKeachie points out that ethics in education often involve gray areas that may not appear unethical, but in fact probably are. Some good examples of these gray areas include arriving at class underprepared and not remaining current on the best instructional methods for facilitating learning. McKeachie also provided a nice discussion about the teaching of ethics in this chapter. McKeachie emphasizes that our values are expressed to students regardless of whether or not we teach ethics explicitly. This is important in terms of both obvious ethical violations and the less obvious gray areas. The ethical decisions we make in the classroom influence our students to behave in similar ways. In my own teaching, I hope that I am able to appropriately identify potential ethical gray areas and respond appropriately. Below, I provide a link to the journal Ethics and Education. Although I do not intend for my readers to seek out and read articles from this journal, I think it is important that they be aware that this journal and others like it exist. Ethics is an important and respected component of education.

In chapter 23, there is a nice discussion about using students' existing knowledge to teach them new things. Especially in lower level classes, students may have no background knowledge about topics that are being covered. Drawing connections between students' previous knowledge and new information allows them to more easily make sense of the new information. I will elaborate on an example that the authors used: if an instructor seeks to teach students about conflict in organizations, they might consider starting the discussion by referencing social disagreements. Few students will have direct knowledge about the nature of conflicts in organizations. However, all students should have had some experience with social disagreements. Drawing connections between these two related topics may allow students to make sense of the new information easier. In my own teaching, I will seek to draw connections between students' previous knowledge and new information when possible. Below, I provide a link to a website that provides tips and techniques for building on students' previous knowledge to help them learn new information.



Additional Resources:

Ethics and Education journal

Building on students' previous knowledge