Expressing your teaching philosophy in 10 words can be a short but powerful way to reflect on your teaching values and practices. We asked the recipients of Oakland University’s 2024 Teaching Awards to share their Teaching in 10 Words, plus a little more on those 10 words. Learn more about the awards, which are coordinated through the Senate Committee on Teaching and Learning.

Be a part of Teaching in 10 Words. See dozens of short teaching statements, and share your own.

Take field trips.

Scott Tiegs, Teaching Excellence Award

The educational benefits of field trips are well documented, but the frequency of field excursions has been in a state of precipitous decline in recent decades – especially since the pandemic. My teaching tip is to buck the trend and routinely incorporate field trips into your curriculum. Hands-on learning experiences outside the classroom provide an immediate and impressionistic understanding of the subject matter that can help students develop a personal relationship with it. Beyond their educational benefits, field trips are opportunities to visibly engage the broader OU community (e.g., off-campus service learning), and they can be an antidote to problems with commuter campuses (e.g., by fostering meaningful friendships among students). Because they can be highly enjoyable, field trips are sometimes perceived as lacking in academic rigor, but when positioned in the broader context of the course material they can be powerful educational tools that elevate the quality of our courses.

Inspire student’s drive to acquire knowledge and apply it.

Mary Bee, Excellence in Teaching Award

A professor’s greatest responsibility is to inspire students in a way that makes them open their eyes and see beyond typical conventions. Teaching requires a balance between instruction and observation, lecture and silence, praise and constructive criticism, leading and being led by the students. I strive to not only teach the material, but to nurture wonder and reverence for the subject in all my students. Effectively engaging students and involving them in the learning process stimulates interest in the material and increases their desire to explore. “Real-world” clinical vignettes, for example, enable students to consider what they would do if they were Emergency Room physicians standing before an ailing patient. During a conversation involving the patient, the symptoms and subject matter blossoms, and students become engaged to a degree difficult to attain with a more traditional lecture format. Students eagerly absorb these clinical vignettes, synthesize the anatomical facts and relationships covered in class, and think creatively about the relevance and application of their knowledge that will lead to them saving and bettering the lives of their future patients.

We are all wounded; be tender with each other.

Marshall Kitchens, Online Teaching Excellence Award

The college writing classroom is fraught with self-doubt. We conflate our writing abilities with self-worth, and college students entering the writing classroom agonize over their own sense of identity and value, making themselves vulnerable with multiple overlapping fears about rejection. I’ve latched on to the mantra to be tender with my students -- and for them to be tender with each other. As I developed as a teacher in the computer-writing classroom as well as the online classroom, I focused on the ways that technology can be used to build community and create understanding among classmates and between instructor and students. I focus on encouraging students to treat each other kindly and point out the positive aspects of each other’s works, as well as helping each other to grow as writers. My path has been one of excitement and wonder, and I’ve been privileged to interact with so many engaged students and colleagues.

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Interviews are a creative and flexible active learning activity, offering a change in the course routine in both online and face-to-face courses. Interviews are useful for applying course concepts in real life, giving students a chance to engage with individuals outside the classroom community. They can be used for posing questions embedded in an assignment, for running a simple experiment, or as the basis for a longer project. Interviewees do not need to be specialists; interviews can be designed to allow students to interact with family or friends for convenience. Interviews are especially appropriate in social science courses, but they can be used in any course as a way to gauge community views and social behavior.

Structuring Interviews Effectively

Identify intriguing questions to explore.

For interviews to work well, students need to ask compelling questions that form the basis of a meaningful conversation. Make sure the questions you assign really are interesting to talk about!

Work through an exercise or replicate a short experiment.

Social science textbooks provide exercises that can serve as short experiments, and they discuss classic experiments that can be replicated by students. (For example, the false belief task is a classic test of theory of mind. If the relevant images are given in the textbook, students can carry out the experiment on their own.) Consider whether exercises or experiments in your course textbook can be administered by students with participant(s) of their choosing.

Analyze interviewee responses and compare them with the literature.

Students can compare their findings with the discussion of the issue in the research literature. This is an engaging way to test the validity of the conclusions in the literature and to identify areas for further inquiry.

Ask students to interview individuals in their social circle.

Although I assign final projects in some courses that may require students to interview someone they do not know personally, I normally structure interviews to allow students to speak with friends, family members, or co-workers. This makes interviews less stressful for students and enables me to incorporate them easily into courses.

Practical Considerations 

Describe background information to frame the interview.

Students need to understand the purpose of the interview and how it fits in with the course. In the introductory portion of the assignment, describe background information to situate the interview within a course theme.

Create a simple interview structure and state the procedure to be followed.

It is critical to create a simple structure for the interview that is easy for students to follow as they talk with the interviewee and try to keep track of responses. Describe the exact procedure to be followed with step-by-step directions.

Provide interview questions and explain how the analysis should be written.

It is helpful to provide all of the questions to be discussed during the interview and to explain what the analysis should look like. This ensures consistency in the way students carry out the interview, enables them to compare their observations with one another more easily, and makes the assignment easier for the instructor to grade.

Give tips to make the interview successful.

Interviewing is unfamiliar to most students. Keeping this in mind, anticipate the types of issues students may come across when they conduct the interview and provide tips to carry it out effectively.

Conclusion

Interviews are a great active learning activity to consider when analyzing individual views and behavior. Interviews can be customized to be brief or extensive depending on the nature of the assignment task. Use them to pose questions about course-related themes to the interviewee or to conduct a simple experiment with the interviewee as the participant. I prefer interviews that allow students to interact with family and friends, which makes the assignment more convenient for students to complete and reduces anxiety about interviewing.

Related Teaching Tips 

8 Secrets of Success for Students links to a short TED talk by author Richard St. John, who outlines the essential secrets of success he gleaned from 500 interviews.

Use Elements of Cognitive Constructivism to Design Effective Learning Activities discusses the four elements of effective learning activities. Interviews cover all four; they: 

• activate prior knowledge about the theme needed to conduct the interview
• create surprise since the student cannot anticipate exactly how the interviewee will respond
• apply and evaluate the new knowledge when the student compares observations with those in the literature
• close with a reflective assignment when the student writes a report about the interview or participates in a class discussion about it

Other Teaching Tips in Helena’s “Grizz Tips for Teaching Effectiveness” Series:

• Maximizing the Usefulness of the Beginning-of-Semester Student Questionnaire
• Minimize Low Grades, Withdrawals, and Incompletes with Proactive Strategies
• Moodle Response Templates Improve Student Responses and Speed Up Grading

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About the Author

Helena Riha, Ph.D. teaches Linguistics and International Studies. She has taught over 3,500 students in 17 different courses. Helena won the OU Online Teaching Excellence Award and the Excellence in Teaching Award. This is her nineteenth teaching tip. Outside of class, Helena powers through The New York Times Spelling Bee.

Helena Riha is the current guest editor for the Grizz Tips for Teaching Effectiveness series on the CETL Teaching Blog at Oakland University. Contribute to the Teaching Blog as a guest editor (OU community only).

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Recently, at a party with faculty from other institutions, I overheard someone mention that colleagues in her department weren’t going to share any resources with their students about AI because the faculty in question weren’t “on board” with it.

As CETL’s faculty fellow for AI and teaching this year, I won’t tell you to “get on board” with AI. What I will say, though, is that regardless of your personal feelings toward generative AI and its use in your courses, you can’t avoid talking to your students about it. The less you talk to your students, the more likely they are to use generative AI for unsanctioned purposes and to use it terribly.

“Age-Appropriate” AI Discussions

We might look at conversations parents have with their children about sex and drugs as a helpful parallel to the generative AI moment. In an article written for parents, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) explains, “Some parents may not be comfortable talking with their children about sex and sexuality. However, if children aren’t getting the facts about sex and sexuality from their parents, they could be getting incorrect information from their friends or the media.” When it comes to talking to children about sex, the AAP recommends using honesty in response to questions of children from all ages, but different levels of details depending on the child’s age.

If you’re not talking to your students about generative AI, they will still learn about it and use it, but you’ll have lost the ability to help them become more responsible and mindful users. I recommend an interpretation of the “age-appropriate” approach. Your conversations with students will be dependent on the course number (whether introductory, capstone, or somewhere in between), the student’s academic experience, and the course’s goals. In a large 1000-level general education seminar, I can’t do as much of a deep-dive into how large language model (LLM) data sets are trained on copyright material without the copyright holder’s consent or compensation or the implicit bias of the data used to train OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In a small upper division seminar about technology and media, we can spend an entire class period on these issues. A course that relies on argumentation and evidence will necessarily have a different relationship to AI tools than a course in which students need to learn how to obtain objectively correct answers to problems or use precise formulae.

How to Have “The Talk”

In all courses, I recommend making time within the first or two weeks of class to have the basic talk:

Share your AI policies

To figure out what policy is right for your course, and consequently the right AI talk to have with your students, think about the kind of assignments you give and whether you want students to work with or avoid generative AI on them. Also keep in mind the course’s scope and size, which may affect your ability to engage in meta-learning conversations. If you’re not sure what your policy should be, CETL has an interactive tool that can help you figure it out, as well as a repository of sample policies from various instructors, courses, and institutions.

Remind students that generative AI is neither a search engine nor an encyclopedic repository of scholarly information. 

Generative AI results must always be verified externally. There are many variations of a flow chart to help students understand this floating around the internet, though the originating source comes from a UNESCO quick start guide on artificial intelligence in higher education (p. 6). These flow charts ask students if they need a result that is true and accurate and if they have the expertise to verify accuracy. If yes to the first but no to the second, a different digital tool is more appropriate.

Suggest or require students to take our new AI literacy course, developed by OU Libraries. 

The micro-course introduces students to how LLMs work and to some of the ethical issues, such as copyright and labor concerns, surrounding the creation and use of tools like ChatGPT. It can easily be completed as one homework assignment. Students who successfully complete the course will have a digital badge to share. 

Conclusion

As you “age up” your conversations with students about generative AI, you might talk to them about the ethics of data sets, the extreme toll tools like ChatGPT have on the environment, or how their ability to successfully prompt AI might shape their future employment. In its most sophisticated form, you might assign activities that ask them to learn how to work with various AI tools, critique the AI’s output, and determine which AI is most appropriate for which task.

For now, though, just remember that it’s important to talk to your students about AI, so they don’t learn about it on the streets. Have “the talk” as soon as you can.

References

American Academy of Pediatrics. “Talking to Your Young Child about Sex,” Pediatric Patient Education (August 30, 2022). DOI: 10.1542/peo_document142.

“The Authors Guild, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, George R.R. Martin, and Thirteen Other Authors File Class-Action Suit Against OpenAI.” AuthorsGuild.org, September 30, 2023.

“ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education.” UNESCO.org, 2023. 

Hajikhani, Arash and Carolyn Cole. “A Critical Review of Large Language Models: Sensitivity, Bias, and the Path toward Specialized AI.” Quantitative Science Studies (2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00310.

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About the Author

Bridget Kies is Associate Professor of Film Studies and Production at OU and CETL’s faculty fellow for AI and teaching. She is the co-author of the article “From Attributions to Algorithm: Teaching AI and Copyright in Media Studies” for the journal Teaching Media and the creator of the video lecture “How to Train Your Algorithm: Responsible AI in the Classroom.”

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Our students today are seeking instructors that are invested in them, not just their learning. Establishing a connection early on can be important, but it can be difficult to get to know students at the beginning of the semester. Taking a little extra time to connect pays off with students during the semester, as they are more likely to be invested in their learning. Here are some easy ways to make those connections early on in order to foster positive relationships throughout the course. 

Easy Ways to Connect

• Use index cards to have students write their preferred name/nickname and/or pronouns. Collect them and pass them back out every day as students come into the class. This helps to quickly connect names to faces, as well as take attendance or shuffle cards for different groups. It's also a great chance to greet them individually and connect.
• Encourage them with points or extra credit to update their Moodle profiles with some of their interests, majors, etc. This helps you to be able to look up what you may have in common with them, or what they may have in common with each other. Students can also add their name pronunciation to their profiles using Moodle’s multimedia tool.
• Students appreciate when you take an interest in them–ask them questions about their hobbies and interests, and be sure to share yours with them. For example, having students pick a “walk up” song, asking students to debate favorite characters of shows/books/etc, and sharing pictures of pets.
• For more asynchronous ways to connect, I create a couple of “checking in with you” short assignments on Moodle several times during the semester. Students will often open up with what they may be struggling with if you ask. Students have really appreciated a follow up to see how they were doing with it, or pointed them towards potential student resources at OU or extra help. Approaching students first instead of waiting for them to come to you really helps students that may feel anxious asking for help.
• Asking students to fill out a survey with questions about what they are seeking to gain from class, what resources they may need, and what challenges they may face in class or at home to keep them from being successful. This can be done as an anonymous Who’s in Class survey, a more detailed student questionnaire related to class content, or in whatever way best works for you and your students.

Conclusion

More than ever, students coming from the rupture of the pandemic are seeking to make connections and build relationships. Although it can be difficult to connect when we have so many students, a few small steps can create a classroom environment where students feel seen and a part of a classroom community. Investing in our students as people, not just learners, can make a huge difference in their learning. Early connections with students sets the stage for positive relationships throughout the semester. 

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About the Author

Jessica Rico is a Special Lecturer of Writing and Rhetoric at OU.  She focuses on relationship-rich education and inclusive teaching.

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