Adjunct: the search for an effective teaching measure. (The scholarship of teaching and learning).

"You sure you have a doctorate?" A student called out as I was writing on the board, during a Social Psychology class. I do not use the board all that often and my handwriting, despite many years of drill with the Palmer Method during my Catholic elementary school education, is primitive. "Yep," I responded as the class and I were laughing, "I do and think of the limitless possibilities all of you have, if a guy like me can earn a doctorate." I was not sure when I heard that student's comment why I got such a kick out it. As I have thought about that incident, I realized not only was it a pretty funny remark at the time but it also reflects the kind of atmosphere I try to create in class. An atmosphere where good-natured ribbing of the teacher is not out of bounds.

I started teaching college psychology classes as an adjunct thirteen years ago when I finished graduate school. And as the distance from my own student years lengthens, I no longer have a reference point to measure how I'm doing. There are very few valid markers of effectiveness in teaching on any level but even less in college teaching. College level testing in an individual course, for instance, is of limited use when trying to gauge effectiveness. These tests are designed and controlled by the teacher and they can be manipulated anyway that the professor sees fit. I always talk, in the beginning of class, about grading and say I haven't figured the whole thing out yet. I start a discussion about how teachers mark papers and reports and many students conclude that it's very subjective. I make the connection to one of my favorite shows, Ebert and Roeper and the Movies. On any given film, one critic will have a plausible explanation of why he gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up while the other critic will be just as adamant about his thumbs down review. The same filtering of information through an individual's experience and expectations happens when a professor marks term papers and tests. So how students score on tests, papers, and projects are of little use to me when gauging my effectiveness.

For a while, in my struggle to discover a measure, I would get to the college fifteen or twenty minutes before my class and walk down the halls until I found an open classroom door. Then, standing off to the side, I would listen to what was going on in the class. Invariably, a present or former student would walk up to me and ask, "What are you doing?" Self-consciously I would sputter, "Nothing." And we'd start talking which would end my observation for that day.

So I finally decided that I'm on my own. The yardstick I have been using lately, to measure my effectiveness, is how engaged the students and I are in the lesson, lecture, and discussion. Can I create an atmosphere that is relaxed but stimulating and one in which even students who do not usually participate in other classes feel free to join in during my class? Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. But lately, as I gain confidence and comfort, it happens more and more. Often I achieve this atmosphere when I simply let go and become truly present to the class. The more controlling I am, insisting on covering specific material in a predetermined order, the more I watch their eyes glaze over as the action, participation, and thinking slows. When I stop tying to dominate, exciting things often happen.

During the 1970's I tried this approach as a high school theology teacher. This was an interesting time in education and in theology. Much of the established dogma about teaching and theology was being questioned and there was room and encouragement for much experimentation. I was in my mid twenties and excited by the free thinking but not very disciplined in my approach to teaching. The theology department consisted of about twelve teachers who enjoyed talking and arguing but most of us lacked direction in the classroom. We had no textbooks and designed our own courses. We loved to have faculty meetings and would often cancel our classes so we could continue our discussions. Occasionally I had great classes but they were few and far between because, as I look back on it, I did not put much time into preparation. I couldn't sustain my enthusiasm for teaching, felt burnt out, and left after only five years. So although I was still attracted to the free flowing, let's see where this is going to take us, approach when I started teaching college courses, I knew that to be successful with this style I had to approach it in a completely different way than when I taught high school.

Not long after I started teaching as an adjunct I had a dream that clearly expressed my teaching fears. I dreamt about being in a classroom and feeling slightly disorientated, not knowing exactly which class I was in, who my students were, where my notes were, and how I was going to pull this off. I've continued to have this dream with various plot twists over the years. The dream illustrates that both consciously and unconsciously I'm aware that I need to put in much more preparation prior to each class before I can let go.

I need a base of knowledge and experience that I did not have in the seventies to succeed now. I have to be grounded in the topic we are examining before I can take my lead from the students. Letting go puts me in a vulnerable position and when I can't "pull it off" I feel like I'm adrift and struggling. I'm not in the flow but outside of myself locked in uncomfortable self-focus. After these classes I walk to my car head down muttering to myself about how awful it went. But by the next class I'm always up to the challenge of another try. I've even come in after a class that I felt like I was in a free fall and said, "last class was pretty lousy lets see if we can do better today."

My basic preparation for each class is to be comfortable with the textbook coverage of the topic we will be considering in class. I use the text as a touchstone to keep me grounded and sometimes as a safe base to return to when I have the feeling that I'm in that free fall. But the more comfortable I've become over the years, after reading numerous text books and research articles, the more I'm able to let the text information come through in our discussions. So my conscious and unconscious fears depicted in my dream of not knowing where my notes are and feeling unprepared and not grounded have been calmed. My notes now are always within me and my students help pull them out.

One of the ways I attempt to establish a comfortable class is through personal interactions. My classes are usually fairly small, about thirty, and my initial task is to learn all the students' names. At the end of the first class I take class pictures. Some of the students protest mildly but I tell them they can only cover their faces if they're in the witness protection program. Armed with these pictures I can fairly quickly learn their names, which soothes another one of my fears, not knowing who my students are. I don't feel at home in the class until I know everyone's name, until I can call each of them into the discussion by name. Students who are acknowledged by name feel included and are easier to engage in the lesson.

Over the years I've found authors who support my view of teaching and when I read them I feel validated in my struggle. Langer and Palmer are two whose writings have helped me along my journey. I feel supported by their writings and challenged to proceed. Langer has applied her research about mindfulness which she defines as having three characteristics: "the continuous creation of new categories; openness to new information; and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective" (1997 p.4) to her own college teaching. "My notes before a lecture are sparse to nonexistent. I fear that if I write out all that I plan to say, it will be hard not to rely on past thoughts when I give the lecture again. Without a script I'm forced to reinvent the lecture instead of giving a canned one." (p.88).

Palmer in the numerous workshops he leads with teachers and in his own teaching has explored "what is happening inside us as we do it. The more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more surefooted our teaching - and living - becomes." (1998 p.5) He believes that the "inner quest for communion becomes a quest for outward relationship: at home in our own souls, we become more at home with each other." (p.5) Palmer looks not to "fill space" in the class by talking and lecturing but to "open space" to create a community of learners.

My focus, more and more, is on the class meetings themselves because I think this is where the magic happens. I come prepared and try to remain open, "mindful," and spontaneous. The classroom is where I can invite my students individually by name into a discussion as a "community of learners." Where students and I can grapple with course topics and bring our own unique experiences to bear on them. I'm interested in the here and now of the class because it is in the performance of any activity - sports, theatre, teaching - that it's success is measured. Performers, who are connected to the moment by reflection in action, can assess how they are doing. The atmosphere in the classroom is tangible. The aliveness, the fear, the boredom, the thinking all hang in clear sight. Teacher and students who are in the flow of the learning moment actively grappling with the course material and each other is the true gauge of effectiveness.

Recently in an Adolescent Psychology class, we were just starting to cover the parenting of adolescents. I came in for the class and said that I had read all the text book material on parenting adolescents and thought both about my own adolescent experiences and about parenting my three sons through adolescence. But after all that preparation I told them that I was unsure of how to present the topic. Parenting is a messier business than is conveyed in any of the literature. Even when I tried to put my experience down on paper it also lost its messiness and complexity. So I decided I would just jump into the discussion and they all had to help me out. At the end of the class a student, who was older than most and had parented her own adolescents, said, "great class" - "thanks," I replied, "it was a group effort."

References

Langer, E.J. (1989). Mindfulness. New York: Addison-Wesley.

--. (1997). The power of mindful learning. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Palmer, P.J. (1998). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Gerard T. Seifert, St. Joseph's College, NY

Gerard, Ed.D., is an adjunct senior lecturer at St. Joseph's College, and a school psychologist at the Sachem Central School District, Holbrook, New York.