The measure of effective teaching

If we spend time with our children when they prepare for an examination, we are likely to be surprised, if not shocked, at the vast content they have to deal with. There is so much more that students in schools, colleges and universities have to grapple with.

But do not blame teachers for expanding the curricula — they just want to prepare our children to cope with new knowledge.

In the past 50 years, our understanding of the world has grown by leaps and bounds, whether it is in biology, physics, chemistry or medicine. And it is not just the breadth of knowledge that we have to concern ourselves with, but the depth of the various topics, as well.

In pre-Internet days, if we wanted to bone up on a topic, we would head to the library and start with a book to get a basic understanding. Next, we would turn to journals for updates on the information.

Today, we can find the information we seek from the comfort of our couch, if we know how to do so. With the ocean of information and flood of new insights available, the old paradigm about mere transfer of basic knowledge from teachers to students is no longer applicable. But we still need teachers to help students look at new knowledge in perspective.

With more knowledge available, students need to study a greater number of topics relevant to a particular subject.

So, subject teachers would wish to cover the widest range of concepts and ideas, their fear being that if they omit a topic, their students might not be able to respond adequately to exam questions and this would reflect badly on their performance and that of their school.

GO FOR DEPTH

At one stage, it was felt that students would benefit more if they were exposed to more knowledge. But in recent years, the pendulum has swung more towards getting students to go more for depth of knowledge.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Research Centre support the “depth” point of view. States like California affirm this position. As a philosophy, there is general consensus that this “depth” proposition has become nearly self-evident.

But there are practical difficulties in emphasising a position of depth. Authors and editorial committees producing new books obviously have a range of views about what is vital. Often, they focus on breadth instead of depth out of political necessity.

Conflict is dodged by using imprecise language concerning standards and covering so many topics that no interest group is left out. Content priority is sacrificed to the political necessity of breadth in coverage.

With enough variation in opinions, textbooks have become massive tomes, with little clarity of focus. This leaves teachers with the difficult task of what topics to cover in breadth and in depth.

As is to be expected, students have more things to memorise. In fact, a recent survey shows that depth of coverage in a particular science is a good indicator of performance of students at college level. In other words, teaching for breadth, as is commonly practised in secondary or high schools, confers limited benefit.

What is more important is to know whether our students comprehend the essence of what they are taught. If they can incorporate their new knowledge in their further studies and in their work, that would meet our desired outcome.

Effective teaching enables students to think intensely about the subject at an appropriate level. Then we can monitor that thinking and provide them with more guidance.

RESEARCH-BASED LEARNING WORKS

Today, in some disciplines such as physics, there is a clear attempt to delineate the concept content that is necessary for students to better understand a given topic. Physics lends itself to such an approach, but a similar inventory of concepts can be built in other fields. So the first step would be to define concepts that need to be understood.

The next step would be to develop effective methods that are more in depth, engaging students in active learning and helping to improve their understanding of concepts. Some of these methods have been tested. A recent paper in Science magazine by Deslauriers illustrates this point.

Students were given three hours of instruction by a trained but inexperienced lecturer, based on research learning. They were also given three hours of instruction on the same topic by an experienced lecturer, using the old system.

The research-based education was found to be twice as effective. Just as important, it was highly rated by the students themselves.

In the research-based system, we have pre-class reading assignments and quizzes, in-class clicker questions with discussions, and small-group active learning tasks, as well as instructor feedback.

At Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, we use a similar approach where all the materials are pre-assigned, with students taking class tests using clickers, followed by discussion and application of what they have learnt to solve a problem.

Our impression is similar to the results of the Science paper, suggesting that this approach could be modified and used in a variety of disciplines. It can leverage on the enormous content available through the websites. We can teach our students to find appropriate information, and how to use it.

These steps may begin to address the “broad as an ocean, deep as a puddle” problem.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

K Ranga Krishnan is Dean of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore. A clinician-scientist and psychiatrist, he chaired the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Duke University Medical Centre from 1998 to 2009. This is part of a weekly series on the way we learn.