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particular moments in the lecture were the most engaging moments
of the class, or how comments I made during the presentation were
particularly affirming. Moreover, my asking if there was anything
I could clarify is often reported as the most puzzling or confusing
section, or the most surprising aspect of the class. Clearly, then,
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gestures I interpret as student disinterest (particularly silence) some-
times indicate a grappling with difficult material.
2. They Encourage Students to Be Reflective Learners
A second advantage of the CIQ lies in its encouragement of stu-
dent reflection. When the instrument is first introduced into a
class, students sometimes find the activity of completing the five
questions on the form to be somewhat artificial, a going through of
some not very convincing motions. Over time, however, they start
to notice patterns emerging in their own emotional responses to
learning. They tell me that as they go through a course they have
pedagogic “out of body” experiences. By weeks five or six of the
course, they are in the habit of hovering above themselves and
studying the ways they react to different situations. Throughout
each class meeting they start to jot down notes about critical
events and their reactions to these as they occur. They tell me that
they want to make sure they include these on their CIQ sheet
when the class finishes an hour or so later. A real turning point is
reached when students ask for the CIQ to be distributed early so
they can complete them as the class is proceeding.
3. They Build a Case for Diversity in Teaching
Invariably, when teachers report back to students the spread of
responses to the last week’s classes, a predictable diversity emerges.
One cluster of students writes that the most engaged moments for
them were during the small-group activity. Typical comments are
“I could recognize what others were saying,” “I learned some-
thing important from a group member,” “I felt my voice was being
listened to,” and “Group members helped me clarify my thinking.”
This group of people often reports that the most distancing
moments were experienced during my presentation. They write that
“I couldn’t see the point of the lecture,” “What you said didn’t seem
to make sense to me,” and “I’d had a long day and was fighting to
stay awake.”
Understanding Our Classrooms
47
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48
T
HE
S
KILLFUL
T
EACHER
Another cluster of responses says exactly the opposite. To these
students the most engaged moments in class were experienced dur-
ing the instructor’s presentation. Typical comments are “What you
spoke about related directly to me,” “I enjoy hearing what you think
about this,” and “I really benefit from having things laid out in front
of me.” This same group usually reports that for them the most dis-
tancing moments happened in the small-group exercise: “We got
off task,” “An egomaniac dominated our discussion,” and “One man
felt it was his duty to solve our problems though we hadn’t asked
him to.” Again, in picking out affirming actions, one cluster of
responses might summarize people’s favorable reactions to a teacher’s
self-disclosure. Another cluster of responses might report this as too
discomforting or irrelevant. One student wrote about a class of mine
“Your willingness to be open with us is wonderful. It makes me feel
like being open in return.” Another wrote of the same class “Too
much psychoanalysis, not enough content—90 percent of our class is
personal disclosure and only 10 percent is critical rigor.”
As I read out these responses at the beginning of each new week,
students often comment on their diversity. They laugh as they hear
how eight people picked out the small-group experience as the most
engaged moment and how another eight reported the same activity
as the most distancing or confusing episode in the class. They say to
me that they didn’t realize how different students experience the
same things so differently. Then we talk about the concept of learn-
ing styles or situated cognition and about the ways that culture, race,
class, history, and personality structure how events are experienced.
Seeing a diversity of responses emerge every week is a dramatic way
to teach students that different people learn differently.
Each week I emphasize that my recognition of this diversity lies
behind my own efforts to use a range of teaching methods and mate-
rials. I tell students that I ground my use of different methods in
students’ reports of their own experiences as learners in my courses.
If different people learn differently, then I need to use as many dif-
ferent approaches as possible to make sure that for some of the time
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in class each person feels they are learning in a style that feels com-
fortable, familiar, and helpful. I could write “conviction” in my
syllabus, and explain it at the opening class, but this is often ignored
by students who believe that everyone else learns the way they do.
Without realizing it students often universalize their experience as
learners, assuming that others exhibit the same reactions and
responses as they do. But when they hear, week after week, how
people sitting next to them have a completely different reaction to
what goes on in class, the reason why I use a variety of approaches
starts to make sense.
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