IF YOU WANT TO:
Empathizing with the students' difficulties in learning the material for the first time.
A faculty member in the sciences says that he noticed that he had taught the course better the first time than he did the second time. "When I asked myself why, I realized that in preparing the course for the first time, I really had to work hard to master certain parts of the material in order to explain it to the students. The next time, however, these concepts no longer seemed difficult to me. Unfortunately I forgot that they would still be difficult for the students. Now I color-code all of my lecture notes, keying the parts that students are likely to find difficult and making a special effort to make those points very clear."
A physics professor also tries to put himself in the students' shoes. "After I have finished writing up a set of lecture notes," he says, "I review them carefully, asking myself: `What might the students find hard to follow in that line of reasoning?' `What examples might make that more clear?' This has now become the most important part of my lecture preparation."
Several faculty members report making notes to themselves of explanations that worked well and those that didn't. They also keep records of the kinds of errors students most commonly make in assignments and exams as a reminder of what students find most difficult to understand.
Limitations on Use of Suggestion
Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California