Teaching Example

Teaching Example after Gibbs‘ (1988) Reflective Cycle


Course "Zwischen Eider und Kongeå: Ausgewählte Fragenkomplexe zum 1. Jahrtausends n. Chr. in Nord- und Südschleswig" (= Between River Eider and Kongeå. Selected Problems of the First Millenium AD in Northern and Southern Schleswig)


Seminar at the Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Christian-Albrechts-Universität at Kiel

Autum Term 2009/10

S. Kalmring & A. Rau

  • 14 x 1.5 hours
  • supervision of 10 student papers
  • 2-days excursion


Description

As a teacher one is admonished to relate to three very basic but not less important didactical questions to which the following description of the course “Between River Eider and Kongeå. Selected Problems of the First Millenium AD in Northern and Southern Schleswig” is oriented on, too:

What? - As researchers in the field of archaeology at an extra-faculty research centre my colleague Andreas Rau and I were doing investigation in chronologically different fields – Roman Iron Age respectively Viking Age – but were working in the same geographical area that is Scandinavia in general and Southern Denmark in particular. Based on that background together we would be thus able to cover a considerable timeframe from 400-1100 AD and to redraw the cultural history in our working area. The former duchy of Schleswig seemed to be particularly suited as a subject it once was stretching from the river Eider in the south to the river Kongeå in the north, but after two Schleswig wars between Prussia-Austria and Denmark in 1848-51 and 1864 in 1920 finally was split between Denmark and Germany. However as an entity with a distinctive topographical situation between the North Sea and the Baltic it always functioned both as border area as well as link between Continental and Northern Europe.

How? - The course was laid-out as fourteen weekly seminars of 1.5 hours each covering the whole term, to which all-in-all seventeen students applied for. In the first meeting as teachers we gave a general introduction to background and aim of the course plus possible problems due to different research traditions. Then we prepared a list of topics the students could choose among to prepare as a short presentation of about twenty minutes in the run of the course. The topics were divided into thematic problems as “Geography & Historical Sources”, ”Trade & Traffic”, ”Settlements”, ”Fortifications”, ”Elites”, ”Economy & Imports”, ”Cult & Religion” and “»Ethnic« Problems” and were rounded off by a final discussion. Part of the seminar also was to hand in a seminar paper which together with the presentation and the commitment in the discussions was part of the final marking of the student’s accomplishment. At the end of the course the knowledge gained in the classroom should become embedded further by a practical experience by means of a two days excursion to some of the most important sites in this border area.

Why? - Both my colleague and I were interested to introduce our knowledge gained in an extra-faculty institution to university and to interact and discuss with students in a seminar course as teachers. One basic idea also was not to align research according to modern borders, but to challenge the students to work cross-border and even to try to cope with publications printed in foreign languages other than English.


Feelings

In the beginning of the course both my colleague and I were somewhat unsecure concerning the number and composition of students that enrolled for this course. On the one hand with a pre-fixed body of topics for the students to prepare we were hoping to have enough participants to be able to give away the presentations we regarded being crucial for the success of this course. On the other hand the administrational needs of the students towards the course were quite diverse. The majority of the students were regular BA-students who required the credit points for their degree programme. Some more advanced students were still studying according to the M.A. programme while again others did not need any course attendance certificates at all but just participated as interested guest auditors. This composition made it difficult to determine which kind of teaching would be appropriate – teaching as process of shaping/moulding students in the case of the undergraduates or already teaching as an expert guide on a subject to be explored by more advanced students (cf. Fox 1983). A closely connected question was how much basic knowledge could be taken for granted.

Characteristically there were a few students which were very committed while others were rather willing to deliver a moderate input in order to gain the credit points needed. While the aspiration to include the latter ones was a challenge another problem was how to deal with absence of students without valid excuse or not attending when a presentation should be given by the respective student. Here we felt unconfident about how to appear and motivate on the one hand and the right amount of strictness that was appropriate in these cases on the other.


Evaluation

In order to guarantee a successful presentation in terms of scientific acquirement and presentation of knowledge for the speaker as well as an instructional event for the class as a whole we provided the speaker with as short list of basic literature on the respective topics. These lists included five titles which should serve as a secure point of origin from which the student was free to acquire further information along the sidelines. One week in forehand we asked the student to come to us after class and to outline what he was intending to present the following seminar. While some of the students were grateful for this kind of guidance others seemed to look upon it as an unnecessary deed – even if the latter attitude was not always reflected in the quality of the respective presentations later on.

Most of the topics laid-out in the preparation of the course could be allocated to the enrolled participants, but some stayed vacant. In addition to the introduction to the course these were prepared by the teachers in order to provide the information needed for the overall research problem. When a student did not appear to his or her presentation the situation was harder to cope with and was solved by the teachers’ short summary at the beginning of the following seminar.

As teachers we tried to encourage the students to prepare well looking upon their presentation not only an exercise for themselves. We tried to moderate that at the same time they also have certain responsibility towards their classmates, which in their terms through the presentation in front of the class make an effort to impart knowledge to the group. That way they would share the common work on the overall problem of the course.

On that background we asked the students to prepare a shore handout with short summary and basic references. At the end of the participants were obliged to write an essay of about 15 pages on their topic to train scientific writing. Based on the quality of their presentation, the participations in the succeeding discussions and their seminar papers marks were given. Though the work requirements were set after the general study guidelines some students seemed to be overburden by the amount expected in relation to their overall study schedule.

Amongst others the participation of interested guest auditors showed that the course thematically could fill a gap in the syllabus. The subsequent 2-days excursion was a very attractive part of the course and obviously fulfilled an important demand for excursion days requested by the degree programme.


Analysis

As extra-faculty teachers back then we might have been too little integrated in the problems occurring due to the transition of the study programmes in the institution. The mixed composition of the course with a majority of undergraduate students studying in the BA-programme and some advanced students with acquirements according to the M.A. programme made it difficult to fulfill the needs of both parties. This did less affect the very content of the course design, but rather our expectations in the work to be performed.

Apart from the training of general skills needed in academia reflected in the course tasks – that is literature research, oral presentations and writing scientific articles including quotation guidelines – we wanted to address to the students curiosity and encourage them to their follow their interests and think critically. Therefore the discussions subsequent to the presentations were not just an agenda item to have, but crucial for the learning effect. However this demand sometimes seemed to collide with very much school-like BA-programmes, where students have to follow certain courses in a certain order and finish at a certain time (Pechar 2012). Here some students rather wanted to know hard facts to learn by heart instead of challenging common research opinions. It also seems to be important to keep in mind that not every student reads the subject in order to become a researcher, but that a BA-degree offers several job opportunities.

In some cases the assistance offered by e.g. providing every single student with basic literature to start their literature research with might have been too cautious from our side. With the intention to safeguard a certain quality of the presentations for the sake of the fellow students, the more advanced ones were not challenged enough and thus hindered in their metacognitive competence and self-adjusting learning (Pettersen 2008:118-19). A “failure” also should be accepted and become reconditioned afterwards as an instructional example, too.


Conclusion

The general feedback we received from the students in the final discussion at the end of the course was predominately positive. To combine classroom seminars with an excursion at the end of the course was also appreciated and contributed to link the theoretical learning with the actual archaeological sites or artefacts displayed in museums’ exhibitions. The fact that this particular seminar was requested later on seems to confirm a general positive evaluation.

However seeing the analysis within this course reflection of course there are many aspects which could have been improved in retrospective. The students heterogeneity in terms of the MA/BA shift was restricted to a certain period and is completed by now and settled as a problem. However different background knowledge and ability in relation to the students level of university studies as well as different grades of motivation in the students’ course preparations (Biggs & Tang 2001: 34-57) in fact is a challenge. The next time it seems to be important to take more regard to the composition of the course participants and challenge them more individually in order to activate their prevailing knowledge and competence (cf. Barrows 1992). Further reflection is needed in terms of how to bridge the student’s concrete needs resulting from their study programmes, the development of basic skills as literature research, oral presentations and scientific writing articles, but at the same time likewise the mediation of the curiosity, spirit of research and joy of critical thinking.


Action Plan

The idea to teach this course arose from our own expertise and interests as well as by the wish to demonstrate a topic close to our heart and make students interested in this particular field of research. The way the course was developed was partly according to the way we had experienced seminars as students ourselves, but also a result of intense discussion with my colleague in preparations of as well as during the process of it. In the future I would like to shift the main focus even more from the mere mediation of the thematic content by the means mentioned above, but put further emphasis on the very process of intermediation and the set of pedagogic methods (e.g. Fenstermacher & Soltis 2009). Here I clearly want to improve as a teacher and definitely will visit more pedagogic courses myself in the future.


References

  • Barrows 1992: H. Barrows, The tutorial process (Springfield 1992).
  • Biggs & Tang 2011: J. Biggs & C. Tang, Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Fourth edition (London 2011).
  • Fenstermacher & Soltis 2009: G.D. Fenstermacher & J.F. Soltis, Approaches to Teaching (New York 2009).
  • Fox 1983: D. Fox, Personal theories of teaching. Studies in Higher Education 8:2, 1983, 151-163.
  • Gibbs 1988: G. Gibbs, Learning by doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods (Oxford 1988).
  • Pechar 2012: H. Pechar, The Decline of an Academic Oligarchy. The Bologna Process and ‘Humboldt’s Last Warriors’. In: A. Curaj et al. (eds.), European Higher Education at the Crossroads: Between the Bologna Process and National Reforms (Dordrecht 2012) 613-630.
  • Pettersen 2008: R.C. Pettersen, Kvalitetslärande i högre utbildning. Introduktion till problem- och praktikbaserad didaktik (Lund 2008).