Drew Lanier
College of Sciences
Political Science

Year Awarded: 2006

Teaching Philosophy

Students retain more of course material when they are actively engaged in the learning process. Accordingly, I employ a mixture of lecture and the Socratic Method. Doing so communicates the basic concepts and ideas in the course, while also measuring the students' comprehension, leading to more a profound understanding.

Students will retain more of the course material if it is relevant to their daily lives.

Because of my academic and professional background, I frequently offer examples and concepts to consider, which makes the material more vibrant than if it were discussed only abstractly. Asking students if they can provide examples of important concepts also facilitates active, engaged student learning.

Students learn through repetition.

All students must have a basic understanding of important concepts and terms so as to allow them to proceed to more sophisticated analyses. All students are able to learn the material if they are exposed to it several times in various ways. Thus, I strongly encourage my students to read before coming to class. We then cover the material during class, and then I later make reference to preceding concepts and show their linkage to current topics.

Criteria-based evaluations are a more valid than norm-referenced evaluations.

My students quickly realize that if they know what I emphasize in class, then they will do well in the class regardless of how other students fared. Both the students and I believe that this is a more valid manner by which to assess student comprehension than outright competition against their fellow students. Also, criteria-based evaluations promote cooperative and student-centered learning, which I encourage by explicitly telling students to study in groups. If the group understands the material, then student comprehension will rise too.

Students are more engaged in the course when they feel that the professor cares about them. Many students, particularly at a large university, believe that they are simply a number to many professors. To make them feel like an individual, I make a seating chart of all of my students and learn their names. I also encourage students to visit me during office hours, and I give extensive and specific feedback on each of their assignments.

My research improves my teaching.

When I engage in original research, I am current on the existing literature in the field and I, thus, can better explain how the concepts are relevant to the students. This is particularly helpful in American National Government, in which many students see the subject as distant at best and irrelevant at worst to their lives.

Teaching is a learning process for me.

Each time I teach a course, I learn new ways to present the material, what to emphasize and how to best communicate the course content. Students’ questions provoke me to consider the material from new and novel perspectives. Teaching, for me, is an ever-evolving craft where I myself am the student seeking a more profound, transformative understanding of the course material. To be a good teacher, I must first be a good learner.