WorkshopsWhen I applied for graduate school, I wrote, “My great-grandfather was a college president, my grandmother taught third grade, my father taught college for more than forty years, and I want to be a worthy fourth-generation member of my family's proud teaching tradition.” It hasn't been easy. I was nothing like a born teacher, but I think I was born to teach.
As a young child, I had a speech defect. I didn’t start talking clearly until I was four years old, but once I started, I never stopped. Maybe I went into teaching because I wanted to be heard. Maybe this is why I work so hard to find my voice as a teacher and to empower students to find their own voices.
As a teacher, I try to align my teaching goal (helping students find their voices) with my assessment and pedagogy. First, I ask myself what I want students to learn to do (find their voices and use them to argue persuasively); then, how will I know they can do it (by hearing their arguments in class and by reading their papers and exams), and finally, what will we do in class each day (argue, of course).
Why is the key teaching goal of a criminologist to help students argue persuasively orally and in writing? Because to argue well, a student must learn facts; marshal facts to support arguments; weigh evidence; and be able to see arguments from many points of view. Students who can do all this are empowered to get their voices heard above the din of other voices. Sometimes, students tell me that they have no desire to become social activists and take stands on social issues and get their voices heard. But I point out that the same skills that could make them great social activists, could also help them argue effectively for pay raises from bosses who are not quite convinced they deserve raises. It is often said that knowledge is power, but true power is knowledge combined with the ability and the courage to find one’s voice and to raise it.
Of course, you may feel that students must know something before they have anything valuable to voice. I agree. Therefore, I expect students to devote most of the time spent on homework to learning the “facts of the case.” To help students learn these facts, I provide study questions on each reading. To ensure that the readings are completed, I quiz over one of these study questions at the top of each class period. In this way, I let my readings do my lecturing. Then, class time can be spent helping students find their voices. Of course, for students to find their voices, I must rest my own. That’s fine with me because I feel that carefully chosen readings, combined with study questions and daily quizzes, can transfer information as well as lectures. Therefore, I became known as the teacher who doesn’t lecture.
To focus each day’s debate, I organize each class period around a thesis of the day, which appears on the syllabus and forms the subject of the day’s debate. A sample of a thesis of the day would be as follows: True or False–“The death penalty should be abolished.” I organize the debate in a way designed to help students empathize with people who may hold different views than their own. To this end, students choose various points of view from which to argue: an inmate about to be executed, a warden about to give the order to execute the inmate, the family of the victim, etc. Then, students work within their own team to prepare two or three arguments [each bolstered by evidence] for a thesis statement such as: “As the family of a murder victim, we support or oppose the death penalty because…” Once each team has had time to prepare their arguments, the floor is opened for debate between teams with different points of view.
I assess students on how well they have learned to argue about criminal justice issues as well as how much content they have learned. To assess content knowledge, students are tested daily on one short answer question and again at the time at the midterm and final exams. To assess how well they have learned to argue, students write formal argumentative essay papers and answer essay questions on the exams. For the essay half of each exam, one student draws the essay topic and a point of view for the whole class from those we discussed. Because there are so many combinations of essay topics and points of view to prepare before the exam, a student must do some of their own original thinking during the exam and therefore, develop and demonstrate their voice.
In addition to assessing my students’ work, I also assess my own work as a teacher. To self-assess, I rely on my own inner voice and the voices of my students. Every midterm, I give students an evaluation with just three questions: What most helps you learn in this class and why? What most interferes with your learning in this class and why? What could you do differently that would most help your learning in this class and why? I ask students to fill it out individually and to discuss it with a group and to tell me about their main concerns. Afterwards, I just listen without responding except to ask questions to clarify concerns. The next day I come back with some changes I am prepared to make, some requested changes that are nonnegotiable (I explain why), and some changes they may want to consider making themselves based upon their own self-reports.
I try to be constantly responsive to student concerns, especially the ones that are aimed at my helping them learn more. It seems that my teaching is a constant effort to improve based on what I’m hearing from students. Over the years, it’s been their collective voices that are responsible for most of the good things about me as a teacher. It reminds me about what one anonymous writer said about her readers (Boice 1994:58): “I’ve just imagined a large chorus of faces, all the people who have given me [feedback]… I can, more or less, hear them all at once, in near-concert. They have a special message for me. I must listen. I must listen.”