Even professors need practice

Grad students at Tufts get together to learn how to teach better – a skill often overlooked in graduate programs.

from the June 28, 2007 edition

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Different learning styles applied

Graduate students are usually isolated in their departments. So GIFT participants are excited about the opportunity to meet peers from all over campus.

"One of the greatest strengths of this program is its diversity," says Ashley Shelden, a graduate student in English. "Because we represent other disciplines, we also represent other learning styles.... It's kind of scary when I hear that students don't learn well simply by reading things, my being an English major.... But it's precisely out of that fear that [I realize] if I'm going to give them a difficult text to read, I need to integrate other strategies for comprehending that material."

To tap into those varied learning styles, Ms. Shelden brings along packs of crayons to her practice lecture and sets her giggling students to work drawing key psychological concepts used to analyze a television show.

During Long's presentation on swordplay, he throws out questions to the group, passing along his excitement for the topic with stories about Renaissance England, jokes, PowerPoint slides, and of course, a short demonstration of "thrust" with his own rapier (a blunted stage version).

At the end, Long's peers fill out an evaluation form for him to pore over later. Then the floor is open for discussion. He earns praise for keeping his audience engaged the whole time. But several chide him gently for spending too much time on the introductory material and then rushing at the end to give out an assignment.

Jennifer Kowalski, from the medical school, puts it this way: "It almost seemed like there were two parts, like you were talking in the beginning about fighting in general ... and then I thought it was really cool how we can look at this play and see the class distinctions based on different types of weapons. I wasn't sure: Was that the take-home message?"

Sitting cross-legged on the desk up front, Long nods. "Yep, you got it."

"So you could shorten it by just paring down the beginning," Ms. Kowalski suggests.

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