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INSTRUCTIONAL CONSULTING:
A GUIDE FOR DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE
by
L. Dee Fink
A consultant, by definition, is someone whose prior knowledge about a subject allows them to be of help to someone else. In this sense, instructional consultants are similar to lawyers, doctors, car mechanics, tax consultants, farm extension agents, etc. Like these counterparts, the “prior knowledge” needed by an instructional consultant may take two forms. The first form, useful in simpler problems, is specific knowledge that allows the consultant to give a direct answer to the client’s question. For example, a teacher may contact a consultant and ask: “What are the advantages and disadvantages of essay tests versus multiple choice tests?” In this case, a well-informed consultant should be able to identify two or three advantages and disadvantages of each form of testing (or be able to pull a book or article from their collection that would do the same thing with somewhat more detail).
A second and very different form of knowledge, though, is needed to deal with more complex problems. This is conceptual knowledge, i.e., the analytical framework that allow the consultant to (a) identify the source of the client’s problem or question, and (b) identify what needs to be learned in order to solve the problem or answer the question.
For example, when a teacher comes in and says: “My students don’t like my teaching” (i.e., they give me low teacher evaluations), or “My students don’t seem to be learning what they should”, their questions really are: “What is causing this?” and “What can I do about it?” In order to answer such questions of “cause” and “response”, the consultant needs (a) a model of the act of teaching that will guide their efforts to collect the information necessary to identify the cause of the problem, and (b) a knowledge of alternative responses in the act of teaching that will enable the client to make some changes.
In this chapter, I will present two models: one of the teaching/learning situation and one of the act of teaching, both of which can be useful as a conceptual or analytical framework for analyzing the problems of teachers. I will then present some ideas and resources for identifying alternative responses in the act of teaching.
The Teaching/Learning Situation
Whenever a teacher intends to teach, he or she must recognize that this situation involves three key factors: the teacher, the learner and a subject. The relationships between these three factors can be illustrated in the following diagram:
Figure 1 - "The Teaching Situation"
This diagram reminds us of the importance of the four overlapping areas: A, B, C, and D. “A” represents the knowledge the teacher has about the subject. The diagram highlights the reality that the teacher cannot convey all of his own knowledge to the students. This “fact” implies a basic principle of course planning: the teacher must exercise restraint when selecting the goals and scope of the course.
“B” refers to the knowledge or relationship the teacher has or can have with the learner. Sometimes this knowledge or information about the learners as students or as individuals can be helpful in building motivation to learn. It can also be helpful in finding analogies to explain the subject matter of the course.
“C” represents the prior knowledge or beliefs the learner may have about the subject before the course even begins. The extent and validity of this knowledge will vary from almost nothing to a considerable amount, depending on the subject and the student. Either way, it is important for the teacher to take into account what learners know or what they believe they know about a subject, before undertaking to expand that knowledge.
“D”, however, is the most critical area. This is where the teacher, the learner, and the subject all come together and interact for a period of time. The intended beneficiary of this interaction is the learner; the primary goal is to enlarge the learner’s knowledge or understanding of the subject; but the primary initiator of action is the teacher.
How then can the teacher understand his or her own responsibilities in this critical center of interaction? The following model of the four dimensions of teaching can help explain what all teachers do when they teach.
The Four Dimensions of Teaching
The basic idea of this model is that everyone who teaches, regardless of the subject and regardless of how good or poor they are as teachers, engages four dimensions of teaching: skills, decisions, philosophies, and attitudes. The model also implies that the four dimensions have a hierarchical relationship to each other, i.e., the higher dimensions are dependent in an important way on the lower or more fundamental dimensions.
Figure 2 - "The Four Dimensions of Teaching"
In the next portion of this chapter, I will comment in more detail on each of the four dimensions.
Skills in Teaching
The first dimension refers to the many skills that a teacher needs when interacting with students. Many of these are communication skills that take place in the classroom. The two most common are undoubtedly lecturing and leading discussions. These are clearly important skills and are used to some degree or other in nearly all courses, regardless of which general teaching strategy is used. Sub-components of these more general skills usually include such things as: explaining a concept, providing a metaphor or analogy for a relationship, asking thought-provoking questions, generating humor, revealing one’s own experiences and/or shortcomings, giving students critical feedback on their responses without being condescending or making the student feel inept, developing rapport with students, providing closure for a given session, linking one session’s topic to the subject of other sessions, etc.
In addition, there are a number of important teaching skills that occur outside the classroom. These include writing tests, designing in-class activities for individuals and/or groups, and critiquing written material.
One important point to remember about skills is that they are, by definition, learnable and hence can be improved. A second important point is that not all courses require the same skills. A course that is essentially a lecture course does not require discussion leading skills; a discussion course does not require as much in the way of presentational skills; a course built around “team learning” depends more on skills in designing effective group activities for in-class use.
Instructional consultants need to be familiar with published material that can help professors learn and develop the skills they need. Much of the literature on college teaching is focused on the skill dimension of teaching. Selected items are provided in the "List of References" in Appendix II of this chapter.
Decisions about Course Design
The second dimension, “Decisions”, refers to the decisions all teachers need to make, primarily before a course starts, about the design of a course. Any course, if it is to be a good course, must have a good design. And designing a good course calls for the same balance of technical knowledge and creative imagination as the task of designing a building or designing a picture.
This particular dimension is one where consultants can have a big impact on the teaching done by faculty in a relatively short amount of time. Therefore I am going to make some extended comments on two different tools that have been helpful in working with many faculty members on course design: five principles of good course design (described below) and an 11-step "Decision Guide" contained in Appendix I.
The basic idea behind what I have whimsically come to call "Fink's Five Principles of Fine Course Design" is that any course, to be a good course, must:
1. Challenge students to higher level learning.
2. Use active learning.
3. Give students frequent and immediate feedback on
the quality of their learning.
4. Use varied forms of learning.
5. Have a fair system of testing and grading.
My proposition is that, if a course does these five things well, the results will be good, no matter what else is bad about the course. What do these principles mean and how do they affect decisions about course design?
1. Challenge students to higher level learning. The proposition here is that there are two levels of learning: higher and lower. Both are important. Lower level learning refers to simply understanding and remembering basic information and ideas. All significant learning requires a certain amount of this. But higher level learning refers to such things as critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving, decision making, etc. My argument is that, unless students achieve a significant amount of higher level learning, the course simply will not make a major contribution to the students’ “higher education.”
When designing a course, a teacher must find a way to incorporate both types of learning in the course. This is the main task of Step Two in the "Decision Guide" shown in the Appendix. One response is to design the course so that students spend the first half of the course learning the basic material, and the second half working on higher level learning. A more creative approach might be to have them learn the basic concepts about just one topic and then learn how to use these concepts (by thinking critically about them, solving problems with them, making decisions, or whatever), before moving on to the next topic.
2. Use active forms of learning. The idea here is that there are two basic kinds of learning: passive and active. I define passive learning as receiving information or ideas, i.e., as what typically happens when someone reads a book or listens to a lecture. Active learning, on the other hand, occurs when a person uses information or ideas to engage in a complex intellectual activity such as decision making or critical thinking.
As an analogy, try to imagine teaching someone who does not know how to do push-ups, to do push-ups. Lecturing to them about the muscle groups involved and the movements needed can be helpful. Even modeling some push-ups can be helpful. But eventually, if the person is going to learn to do push-ups, they are going to have to do push-ups themselves--repeatedly, and preferably with immediate and frequent feedback.
The same thing is true with anyone trying to learn how to do “intellectual push-ups” (i.e., critical thinking, problem solving, etc.). Providing relevant information and modeling can be helpful, but eventually the learner has to DO the “intellectual push-ups” him/herself--repeatedly, preferably with immediate and frequent feedback. The basic argument here is that a student CANNOT acquire higher levels of learning with passive learning; such learning requires active learning.
When designing the course, the teacher must decide when, where and how the passive and active learning will occur. These are the questions involved in Steps Five and Six of the "Decision Guide". Whereas teachers often use class time for lectures (usually a passive form of learning), a better strategy might be to motivate students spend more time reading before coming to class, and then use class time to have students actively engage in decision making, problem solving, or whatever--with periodic feedback from the professor.
3. Give students frequent and immediate feedback on the quality of their learning. One of the main findings in a recent study of quality teaching at Harvard (The Harvard Assessment Seminars, First Report, by Richard J. Light, 1990) was that students thought "immediate and detailed feedback on both written and oral work" was critically important (p. 8). To extend the "push-up" analogy given above, the professor may need to give the student periodic feedback on where to place the hands, how to hold the back, etc. It is also likely that the feedback will be more important in the early phase of learning than in the later phases of practice and strengthening.
When planning a course, then, a teacher needs to find ways of giving students weekly or even daily feedback of some kind. This might take the form of frequent short quizzes, responses to short written work, oral comments, as well as more substantial graded work. If one accepts the importance of "frequent feedback," then the widespread practice of using "two mid-terms and a final" simply does not suffice as sufficient feedback.
4. Vary the forms of learning used. This has value for two reasons. The first is simply that variety adds interest. No matter how good a teaching technique is, it can become repetitious and boring if it is used over and over.
The second reason, though, relates to the fact that different students learn differently. Some are inductively inclined, others prefer deductive reasoning; some work best in verbal forms, others in visual forms; some like to work individually, others in groups; etc. If a course offers different kinds of learning opportunities, a greater number of students will probably find one or more modes of learning that work well for them.
When designing a course, the teacher needs to identify different kinds of in-class and out-of-class learning activities, and then fit these together in a dynamic way.
5. Have a fair system for grading. Nothing leaves a sour taste in students’ mouth more than working hard in a class, feeling like they have learned something significant, and then having the professor give them grades that is significantly lower than they think they deserved.
Fairness in tests can be enhanced by: formulating questions that focus on stated learning objectives and that also stay within the confines of what the class actually did; using several different kinds of questions (e.g., multiple choice, essay); and using grading standards that are appropriate for the institution, level of students, etc..
Fairness in the grading system can be enhanced by such things as using several kinds (at least 4) of graded activities (e.g., tests on recall information, application exercises, formal essays, small group tests), providing flexibility (e.g., drop one of 7 quizzes), and having the grading system communicated clearly in writing (see Step 10 of the "Decision Guide").
Longer-Term Changes: Philosophy and Attitudes
The third dimension of the act of teaching, “Philosophy”, refers to the many values and beliefs that a teacher has, values and beliefs about knowledge, teaching and learning. Teaching is a goal-seeking behavior and, as such, it forces us to make choices about which goals are preferable (values) and how best to attain them (beliefs). What is knowledge? Teaching? Learning? What is good knowledge? Good teaching? Good learning?
Most professors have difficulty articulating their philosophy of teaching because they have not thought extensively about it. A good way to coax these philosophies out for more careful examination is to ask them either to draw a picture of the teaching and learning process, or to identify a metaphor. Most metaphors will fall into one of four categories:
Transferring - The teacher knows a lot and his/her task is to transfer as much as possible to the students. The teacher is a "pitcher" and the student is a "vessel."
Shaping - The teacher is a coach or trainer or pottery maker. The teacher’s task is to shape the student into a desirable form.
Travelling - The teacher is a guide or leader, someone who points the way. The task is to lead the students on an exploration of new places and vistas.
Growing - The teacher is a gardener who develops, cultivates or nurtures students. The task is to provide proper support, but the growing comes from something innate in the student.
The fourth and final dimension, “Attitudes”, refers to the feelings and images we have: about the subject, about the students and about ourselves. Do we have a love for the subject, or is it just something we learned along the way and can tell others about if necessary? How do we FEEL about the students? Can we see that which is attractive in them as learners, or only that which is negative (e.g., their ignorance of the subject, their lack of motivation, etc.)? How do we feel about ourselves? Do we like ourselves and feel good about how we act and what we know? Or do we feel inept and incomplete in our knowledge? What images do we have of the subject, of the students, and of ourselves that give rise to these feelings? If we were asked to draw pictures of the subject, the students, and ourselves, what would the pictures look like?
Once an instructional consultant recognizes the importance of professors’ philosophies and attitudes, the action question then becomes: What can the consultant do to help professors examine and modify their philosophies and attitudes?
First, a consultant needs to become familiar with the different beliefs and values (i.e., philosophies) related to teaching. Some of this familiarity comes from hearing people talk about why they do what they do as teachers. But, with a few exceptions, most professors’ philosophies of teaching are not very sophisticated because they haven’t read or thought that deeply about the issues involved.