I am a teacher
I have been exploring big questions this year, about what I like to do, what I really care about, and what unique value I bring to my work. I will unpack some of my core contributions here over the next few weeks. Today I focus on teaching.
I have been teaching for more than 20 years! I started out teaching ESL and communication skills to international students. I remember the exact moment that my audience expanded beyond international students. When the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences wanted to start the Harvard Horizons program (a development initiative in which 8 students per year are selected to present 5-minute versions of their dissertation research in a grand symposium), they needed someone to help. I had just secured a full-time position, which was funded by the Graduate School, to manage the English language proficiency policy and to make sure that students had support with their English language skills. They asked me to take on this new project with the help of two fantastic partners.
As we planned the training for that first year, I realized that one of my favorite speaking and listening activities would be perfect for the initial session with the students. Let me explain how to run the activity:
Put students into pairs, and have them count off 1-2. In the first half of the activity, 1s are speakers and 2s are listeners
In the first round, tell speakers they have 5 minutes to summarize their project to their partners. The listeners should take notes and be able to summarize the key things they heard once time is up.
Listeners then have 3 minutes to summarize what they heard, ask questions and make any suggestions on ways to make the summary clearer or more compelling.
Speakers stand up and rotate to the next listener. The initial speaker then has 3 minutes to summarize their project again with a new listener.
Listeners have 2-3 minutes to ask questions, summarize what they heard, and make suggestions.
Once again, speakers stand up and rotate to the next partner, and then they have 1 minute to share a final summary.
Repeat the process so that the listeners become the speakers.
At the end of the process, have a few students share their final version, for group discussion. How did the summary change? Did they get different feedback from different listeners? What are the next steps?
Then, ask a few discussion questions. What can you learn from an activity like this? What was it like to be the speaker, and the listener?
Common themes that usually emerge in the debrief are how hard it can be to get to the core idea, which details to include, and how important it is to hear what different listeners understand when you are speaking. Students realize how hard it is to listen and understand academic content (5 minutes feels a lot longer when you are listening than when you are speaking!), which helps them think about how to simplify, slow down, and emphasize main points. We talk about how in writing we always edit, but we think less about drafting for speaking, and in fact, this is an oral drafting activity. They learn a lot about each other’s projects in a short period of time, which sets the tone for future sessions designed to help them refine their stories. If you want to learn more about this activity and the Harvard Horizons program, you can watch this Talking about Teaching presentation.
This activity always works well, and since that first year I have used it so many times in so many different contexts. You might want to try it! It would work well in a class where students are planning topics for a paper or a presentation, and you want them to have a chance to practice and hear each other’s ideas, or to figure out what the main takeaway is. It can also work as an activity to summarize key points from a reading, first talking in more detail and then getting very concise. I love that it puts a focus on listening, and I talk with students how we really don’t put enough emphasis on learning listening skills, and that we often pretend we understand things, or let them go by instead of making sure we understand. I tell students not to let anything go. They may say things like, “maybe I missed it, but…” or “I am sorry I don’t know much about your field, but what does ____ mean?” We think it’s our fault when we don’t understand things, and we take responsibility, but communication and learning from someone else requires effort on both sides.
I was excited to discover that what I once used as a simple summarizing activity for my language classes could be so effective in other contexts. I realized that my expertise in language pedagogy was central to my professional goals, and from there my portfolio grew. I gained experience teaching students from different backgrounds about teaching and communication. I loved making connections between my favorite activities from language classes and teaching skills that all students and scholars should practice.
Understanding how students learn is an important part of being a teacher, and it helps me design effective programming. I can’t just tell students how to communicate their research, or how to teach a class or try a new strategy. To learn you need to practice, get feedback, and reflect on whether you are achieving your goals. A big part of my work has always been helping students build their confidence to learn and take on new challenges. One year a student in the Harvard Horizons program told me that he simply couldn’t memorize his talk, and that he would need a teleprompter on stage. A program leader less focused on learning may have allowed that, but the goal of the program wasn’t to have students deliver perfect talks. We wanted them to perform well in the symposium, but also to learn the skills to speak effectively and confidently in different contexts in the future. I worked with him, and supported him as he worked with his peers in the program, and in the end he was able to deliver his talk effectively on his own. That felt like a great victory for both the student and the program. People do best in learning environments where they can learn, practice, get feedback, and reflect on their performance, so that they have the confidence to do their best work. I has been a great joy of my life to be part of so many students’ journeys. My most treasured feedback is from a student who at the end of her time working with me simply said, “Thank you, Pamela. Thank you for believing in me.”
Do you want to talk more about teaching, or learning, or how to build your confidence? Please reach out!
