Excellence in teaching

Peter Simpson is a consultant for Hammersley Iron in Science Education based in the Department of Chemistry in UWA. His interest in Chemistry Education, particularly at the transition stage from schools to university, led him to write books for improved teaching of Chemistry in schools. Peter received the Faculty of Science Excellence in Teaching Award in 1996. These awards represent a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

I expect the 45 minutes of each lecture to be a time of active learning. In a sense I conduct my lecture, whether it is to 10, 100, or even 510 students like a tutorial. I endeavour to have all of my students attentive at all times: so I ask questions in class, I call for contributions from class members, I nominate students by name to give answers or to comment, I ask the class members to vote by hand as to which of a number of answers they prefer, or which of a number of comments might be germane. If students are unresponsive I ask students to raise their hands if they don’t have an answer; then I choose someone with his or her hand down. This is academic terrorism! But students who have been used to paying attention and actively learning in a classroom situation at school (where the class size is small) very quickly move into a passive mode at university where they feel comfortably anonymous in their large classes.

My approach can be daunting for students at first. Most of my classes look discomfited in the extreme at about the ten-minute mark of my first lecture, when they have this approach thrust upon them. But they get used to it. And ultimately they give me good scores in SPOT tests.

As a person the students find me friendly, approachable, and helpful (well, that’s what they say in the SPOT tests). However, in the lecture theatre with a first year class mine is a distinctly aggressive style. My hope is that students will perceive how much they are learning in my classes, will recognise that this learning is a result of their mental energy, and will try to generate for themselves mental activity in other classes.

There is no point in presenting in a lecture simply what a student can read in a book or in a set of notes. University lectures may have been invented in the days before the printed word was readily accessible, but if we are to continue giving lectures we have to find a different rationale for them. For my part I am more than happy with the lecture as an effective teaching tool, but that is because I aim to structure my lectures in such a way that 90% of the students are actively involved 90% of the time.