My philosophy of teaching is the result of thirty-seven years teaching graduate courses and seminars for students who are doctoral candidates in a graduate professional school. The philosophy is student-centered and humanistically based.

Beliefs

As a professor, I am both an expert in the intellectual content of the course as well as a knowledgeable and skillful facilitator of the instructional process.

Students are adults who come to class with purpose, motivation, and a zest for learning. My role is to capitalize on, build on, and enhance these characteristics.

Students have a varied and rich background of experience. My role is to use their experience to add meaning and significance to the course content and as a bridge from theory to professional practice.

Students are responsible for their own learning. My role is to involve them in decisions about how they address the content and how their input, presentations, and papers will respond to their professional needs.

Learning is challenging, stimulating, rewarding, exciting. It is an active process involving students' mental, social, and emotional responses. My role is to provide a learning environment that combines classroom and field work opportunities which allow for students to respond in a variety of ways.

Learning is lifelong—a search to forge new concepts, put new twists on old ones, and listen to students who bring a new generation's perspective to the classroom.

Teaching is enriched and enhanced by research. My research endeavors and those of colleagues and students all benefit my teaching, adding theoretical and pragmatic depth to instruction.

Teaching goes beyond the four walls of a classroom. It involves advising and counseling students about their academic and professional concerns.

Organization

Teaching depends on organizing, planning, preparing, and updating. To this end, I provide students with a detailed syllabus that includes: (a) objectives written as end-of-course competencies; (b) various ways each objective may be achieved (reading, reporting, discussing, doing field exercises, simulations, role taking, case studies, games, situation tests); (c) an updated compendium of readings for each class period so students may come to class prepared to discuss, critique, question, debate, reflect, create.

Evaluation

Teaching and learning are improved by formal and informal evaluation. To this end, I provide students with information about how their fulfillment of the course objectives will be evaluated, e.g., "quality of class participation is 1/4 of the course grade, quality of assisting me in teaching a topic of student's choice is 1/4 of the course grade, quality of a position paper on a topic, problem, or issue selected from a list provided in the compendium is 1/4 of the course grade, and field work assignments are 1/4 of the grade."

Midway through the course, I obtain informal evaluation feedback by giving each student a 5 x 7 card. One side asks, "How's it going?" on the other side, "Suggestions." I use the feedback for correction, modification, and advising. Students are also invited and encouraged to provide informal evaluative comments throughout the semester. At the end of the course they complete a formal evaluation of the instructor as well as of the readings. These evaluations help me plan the next offering of the course.

Caution. My kind of teaching is risky. One can never be sure how a class meeting will go. Too, it usually takes more time and effort to help students prepare to assist in teaching the class than doing it yourself. Usually the risk is worth taking, as witnessed by students' increasing confidence and zest for learning.