Faculty Innovation Center

While talking with Dr. Milner of the BME Department, I was reminded of Parker Palmer’s book, “The Courage to Teach.” In it, Palmer writes, “Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.” It is apparent that Tom thinks along the lines Palmer is advocating. For Tom believes that “A professor has to have the heart for teaching and wants students to learn.”

Five years ago when Tom arrived at UT, he had very limited teaching experience. Once in the classroom, he realized that in many respects, he had as much to learn as his students. After two years, he attended a national workshop on teaching effectiveness and has since worked at instituting new methodologies into his classes. Tom has noticed that in traditional classes, non-verbal clues are often the basis for how an instructor reads student understanding. Yet these cues and intuition certainly don’t provide much data. This fall he began using a classroom communication tool called the Classroom Performance System. With the CPS, student responses are gathered electronically and then displayed on the screen. Tom is hopeful that the CPS responses will help him better pace his teaching and stimulate class discussions.

When Tom teaches his undergraduate classes, such as BME 303, he relies on PowerPoint slides. In fact, he has become such an experienced PowerPoint user, that he was asked to talk about his approaches during the Faculty Orientation this semester. Tom’s basic approach is to:

Write the lesson objectives
Create an outline
Create two presentations:
- A presentation that is basically an outline without many of the specifics – this is posted for the students prior to class time so they can print it out and bring to class
- An in-depth presentation that includes graphics, links to other resources and more.

This approach encourages student note taking as well as enabling Tom to prepare organized, reusable classroom materials.

Tom is willing to experiment with his teaching. He is developing a new course, Mathematical Modeling for BME, that relies heavily on the How People Learn model. With this model, students are presented a challenge and they progress through a cycle of discovery and research. An instructor’s role shifts from presenter to that of facilitator and guide. Tom is meeting with the staff in the FIC to discuss approaches and which technological tools he’ll need. One thing is certain; Tom will be thoughtful as he goes about this undertaking. “You have to be reflective about teaching and be emotionally healthy so you can be self-critical in order to improve.”