By Marlan Kay
Beyond the Lecture
Sparking a Fire in the Classroom
A student raves about a class in a converstation with friends.
Another
student spends time after class researching Web sites related to what she
just studied—even though she doesn’t have to. Twenty lower-classmen
participate in lively discussion in their religion class.
These are the classes that epitomize the ideals of education. Students enjoy
the classes so much that they go the extra distance to learn. The instructor
is merely the one who sparks the fire in the students’ minds.
What makes a class provoke this burning for learning in students? If students walked onto the Walla Walla College campus or any other campus across the world hoping to find this kind of classroom experience, what would they look for?
In search of an answer to this question, I trekked around Walla Walla College, looking for the best classes: the classes students enjoy, find most interesting, and remember what they learned—even years after the last final exam is turned in. I talked to guidance counselors, students, and professors, trying to find out what makes the great classes so great.
What did I find? For starters, there is no one recipe for a great course. A wide range of subjects and methods can make for enthusiastic and memorable learning. But I noticed a number of striking characteristics of some of the really good classes, and maybe these give some clues as to what it is that stimulates a classroom to be the best it can be.
Merging academia with real life. Traditionally, people think of college courses as academic, teaching students either liberal arts knowledge or information they will be able to use on the job. Many times, though, great classes blur the line between academia and real life.
“Death and Dying.” Mondays from two until five. In the words of Pam Cress, associate professor of social work and the class instructor, “It might not be your most intellectually challenging class, but it will be your most emotionally challenging.”
Although the study of death is both common and academic, this
class goes beyond scholastic learning during the quarter. Not only does Death
and Dying talk about theory, but it goes much deeper.
It talks about life—and death.
That means it talks about what it’s like to die. What it’s like to be around a dying person. How children deal with death. What kinds of signs people who are suicidal give. How to write condolence letters. How to make a will.
Sound like a thought- and emotion-provoking class? It is. The real-lifeness of the subject makes it relevant to most students’ personal lives. Discussion is vigorous; after all, when else can students ask all the questions they always wanted to ask about death, but couldn’t because it wouldn’t be “proper”?
But there are more than just a few minutes available for discussion. Small groups, online forums, and open discussion in class all make up a huge portion of the class. Mike Kyle, biology major, testifies, “It’s more interactive than any other class I’ve ever taken.”
Of course, working dynamic discussion into a class like Death and Dying isn’t a cakewalk for the professor.
Cress says, “It’s harder to teach that way. It’s easier to get up and lecture.”
But it has proved well worth it. With the interactiveness and the real-life factor, the class has become one of the favorites on campus. It is useful, down-to-earth, and very applicable. Yet at the same time, it’s certainly not effortless.
According to Michelle Mayle, nursing and Spanish major, the course can actually be extremely challenging.
“Sometimes I’ve dreaded going because I haven’t wanted to become emotionally involved, but I feel wiser when I walk out. It’s a bonding class, and a lot of classes aren’t that way.”
The sociological, theoretical part of death studies isn’t ignored, mind you. There is ample instruction on that. But as many students take the class for personal or professional reasons—to learn how to deal with death in life—it makes sense that practical application of that theory is especially emphasized.
Cress notes, “Where this is different is that we’re moving into that emotional content where you’re learning how to live life.”
Probing a fascinating subject. Some classes are just plain interesting. The subject matter may be very practical, or it may be abstract. These classes may be useful professionally, or the everyday person may rarely need the material.
Whatever the case, students take these classes because the subject piques their interest. Students are curious. They want to know things—especially remarkable things.
A classroom example? Forensic Psychology, taught by Bob Egbert, professor of education and psychology.
In it, the students study the art of psychology in a legal setting, such as how criminals’ minds work.
Though the class is an upper division psychology course, a number of students have taken it as an elective, unrelated to their major.
Dave Clark, for instance, is a senior speech communication major, pre-dentistry.
Why is he in the class?
“It looked fun, and it is.”
What makes this class even more atypical is the fact that there are no tests, quizzes, or even a final exam.
Clark says that although a class with less accountability is unusual, not much is needed the high interest level in the subject matter keeps students involved.
“There’s pretty much a consensus of fascination with this one, so it seems to work okay, but it’s not something I’d prescribe to every class.”
He says that the class has affected him more than most of the others he’s taken, and knowing that he’s learning things that not many people know about is a great motivation for him to keep up.
The course is a “topics” class, so it isn’t a regular part of the annual curriculum. Rather, it’s a special class that could potentially be permanently added to the bulletin, but might also be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Many departments offer topics classes similar to this one.
These kinds of classes are usually unique and thus may pique the curiosity of students wanting to take interesting courses as electives or just for fun.
Looking at the usual through different eyes. Naturally, a lot of subject matter may not come across as immediately fascinating, and may not exactly shout practicality. Take American history. The stereotype of a U.S. history course consists of a daily lecture, a thick book full of names and dates, and write-your-hand-off essay exams.
But what if the stereotype changed a bit? What if, say, we added a baseball glove into the class setup? What if instead of studying American history through wars, a class studied it through baseball games?
Welcome to Baseball and American Popular Culture, a class new to Walla Walla College, taught last spring by Terrie Aamodt, professor of English and history, and Terry Gottschall, professor of history.
A class about the history of baseball may seem a bit strange, but it is more common than you might think. Colleges across America already have similar offerings within their bulletins, because this kind of class is academically valuable.
Why? Not only is a history of baseball useful for introducing students to sports history, but studying baseball also provides a very interesting perspective into America at the end of the late 19th and throughout the 20th century. Though it’s a sport, it very visibly reflects the changing course of American history.
Gottschall points out that baseball has readily mirrored issues in American politics, society, and culture over the years: labor struggles in the late 19th century, struggles with communism and McCarthyism in the ’40s and ’50s, and free speech in the ’60s.
“Baseball evolves as American history evolves. To a historian, that kind of development intrigues me, when you have parallel development between a sport and a culture.”
Aamodt says baseball’s most striking reflection of American
history is with its racial and cultural integration, both with black players
during the ’40s and ’50s (baseball integrated before America’s
schools or army) and with other cultures later on. Even America’s current
immigration trends are echoed within the game, as baseball has steadily increasing
numbers of Latin American and Asian players.
In short, Aamodt says, “Baseball has been enormously influential in integrating
a large number of cultures into American society.”
The class also provides the opportunity to look at a historical subject from cultural, aesthetic, and even kinesthetic points of view. Thus, the class turns out to be part history, part literature, part sociology, and part physical education. In addition to writing historical essays, the class plays vintage baseball (1870s rules), learns to keep score at games, and spends time immersed in the literature and film that has sprung up around America’s national pastime.
Not bad for an upper division history class.
Raising the enthusiasm level. In all of these classes, when professors have and show a great enthusiasm for the subject, students do too.
And if students become enthusiastic about the material, they learn more easily.
“Education without personal enthusiasm and interest becomes little more than indoctrination. If you can communicate your enthusiasm to the students, if you can communicate your appreciation of the subject to the students, if you can communicate relevance—that makes for a more effective teacher and a more effective atmosphere for learning,” says Gottschall.
Perhaps that’s the common ground between all the classes students love—however they do it, the teachers in them get students enthusiastic in the subject. This might mean looking at a topic from a different angle, presenting fascinating material, making the class practical and relevant for students’ lives, or just having a professor that’s excited about the course content.
It’s always easiest to teach someone who wants to learn, after all. When students become enthusiastic about a subject, they learn out of the sheer pleasure of learning.
So in the end, that’s what these classes do: they teach students to love learning.
To butcher an old adage:
Teach students to learn, and they’ll learn for a semester. Teach students to love learning, and they’ll learn for the rest of their lives. W
Marlan Kay graduated in June with a major in communications. He is currently a freshman studying at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine.