What is teaching?
The Educationalist. By Alexandra Mihai
Welcome to the first 2024 issue of “The Educationalist”! I hope you had a relaxing break and you started the New Year with the energy to put all your plans into motion. I want to start this year with a- seemingly- simple question: what is teaching? When we say “teaching” we mainly think of the activity that takes place in the classroom (or online), during regular hours and within a certain structure and design; we think of courses, as units of teaching. This is indeed what a lot of our teaching looks like. But there is more to it than that, and it’s those experiences that can be broadly labelled as “teaching” but have different flavours that I’m about to reflect on today. I’m sure many of you will recognise these roles and activities and I am hoping this post will reinforce their relevance in the educational context and with it, the importance of your work “outside the classroom” that is often unaccounted for or not valued enough. Hope you enjoy reading, I wish you a nice week and an inspiring 2024!
I often write about various teaching methods, about designing courses and curricula, about my work as educational developer in supporting faculty with their teaching. The predominant role underlying all these cases is that of teaching in the classroom, or sometimes online (or in a blended environment): imparting knowledge on a certain topic, in some cases co-creating knowledge together with the students, followed by assessing the respective knowledge in different contexts (roughly summed up). The course design is of course an iterative process following the teaching and learning cycle. It is, thus, part of teaching, albeit a role that is sometimes shared with learning designers or educational developers. But this is not the purpose of this post.
This week I want to bring forward some other roles we fulfil in our activity as educators. These roles can be labelled as “teaching” but we need to acknowledge that they require different mindsets, processes and even new skill sets. Let’s see if you can identify with some of them. How many of you have been supervising Bachelor or Master thesis? How about coaching students? Have you also found yourself advising students on their studies and curriculum journeys? These are the three roles I want to focus on today. I will, in turn, reflect on how each of them can enrich us and our students and on what we need to keep in mind to perform them well.
Thesis supervision
Even though thesis supervision is quite a common role, it’s surprising how little there is out there in terms of support for those of us starting out in this role. I had this problem myself and was lucky to have colleagues who kindly shared their advice and support. The process and requirements vary from institution to institution and sometimes from programme to programme, but the core principles stay the same. My colleague Therese Grohnert did a great job putting together some advice here and together with other colleagues co-authored this hot off the press systematic review on effective thesis supervision.
Once you get the hang of it, I find that the process can be enriching both for us and for our students:
We learn how to balance support and autonomy in the right doses, as we encourage our students to take ownership of the process and we adjust our scaffolding accordingly;
Because we work with a student for a longer period we get to know them better, beyond their presence in the classroom, and we get to observe their progress (and make them aware of it!);
We get to practice giving constant feedback and also train students in accepting and using feedback constructively, a skill they will need in their future;
If interests and topics align, and the thesis quality is high, we may have just found our next co-author.
What we need to be good thesis supervisors?
Communication skills: it’s all about developing a good working relation with our students. Plus: here we talk about one-on-one relation (unlike in the classroom), so communication plays an even greater role. Try to be clear, make all expectations explicit and create a communication flow that works for both parties;
Structure and planning: while students need these two ingredients in writing their thesis, as a supervisor you need them at least as much, especially if you are supervising multiple students, which is often the case. A thorough planning of the process, ideally with a way to track progress, can be a useful tool;
Feedback skills: knowing when to provide feedback, how extensive and how specific it should be is a key skill you will get the chance to perfect while supervising your students. remember it needs to be effective and efficient for both of you;
Patience: unlike a course that follows its path (and even there surprises are possible), thesis supervision is not predictable and depends a lot on the students and the relation you establish with them. There will be times when things go smoothly and other times when… well, your patience will be tested;
Reflection and experience: as there is no recipe for being a good supervisor, we can learn a lot from experience, through reflection, and by talking with colleagues.
Coaching
Some of us may find ourselves in the role of a coach (in some cases it’s called a mentor), which can be puzzling at first, as we try to understand how it differs from that of a teacher or tutor. We can coach students in different contexts, for instance one I am more familiar with- coaching for skill and competence development, but it can also take place in the context of project-based learning, when coaching students through the process. I am what we call an “academic coach” in our Competence-Based Coaching course about which I wrote some more here. Students also have a “professional coach”, who is a practitioner and can provide insights from the respective field. I find this mix of complementary experiences very useful to students, allowing them to transition more smoothly to the labour market. My colleague Niels van der Baan wrote more about coaching for employability here.
Some things I appreciate about coaching are:
Seeing the student as a person, understanding what drives them, feeling that you can witness their progress and know you played a small part in it can be very satisfying;
Working with students towards developing a skill or throughout a project is different from teaching a course; it often makes us push our limits, find new ways to support students and thus it provides a challenge that we often need (without even realising we need it) to stay motivated in our work;
Coaching is a form of partnership so it forces us to rethink our relation and ways of interacting with our students, which can be beneficial in the long run.
What we need to be good coaches?
Active listening: coaching is first and foremost about listening. And at first this can be very hard, especially for those of us in the habit of filling all the silences. But soon enough I found out I cannot do my job as a coach if I don’t create the space for my students to reflect and speak out;
Reflection: the key to effective coaching is reflection: helping students create a habit to reflect. This may mean providing them with some structure, some prompts, creating intentional moments of reflection, training some reflection techniques (oral and written), etc;
Flexibility: as we work with students one-on-one (as is the case for all the three roles I talk about here), it’s important to stay flexible, both in our planning and in the ways we need to support our students.
Academic advising
One role that may not immediately come to mind in relation to teaching is that of an academic advisor. This essentially means guiding students in their journey through the curriculum and helping them plan their studies. I only started in this role this year and I must say I find it a privilege to witness and support the development of young minds (19 year old first year students) by helping them build their curriculum, explore their options and find focus. It makes me wish I had someone like that back when I started studying. So if you are offered such a role, I would warmly suggest you don’t hesitate and take it, it can be unexpectedly rewarding. Why?
It gives us the opportunity to examine the entire curriculum of a programme (unfortunately a rare opportunity as we tend to operate in our bubbles) and evaluate its coherence (or lack thereof);
It enables us to see the learning journey from the perspective of students, something very valuable that can be put to great use in our teaching and learning design;
It’s a chance to help students put their studies into perspective, linking them to their interests and passions but also to potential career paths.
What we need to be good academic advisors?
Good insights into the curriculum: in order to be able to advise students we need to know the curriculum well, as well as all the study rules and regulations;
Bird’s eye view: your added value as an academic advisor is the fact that you can provide insights that connect academic choices to students’ interests and skills as well as the careers they aspire to; here I find that I use a lot my own experience so don’t be afraid to use yours;
Empathy is key in this role. When advising students we need to be able to imagine ourselves in their shoes. Open and honest dialogue go a long way.
* Communication skills a well as experience apply to all three roles.
To sum up: “to teach” is more than “to instruct”. It’s also about guiding, listening, advising, supporting.
Teaching also means walking alongside our students, invested in their success.
