Bob Noyd Discusses Three September 28 Workshops
By: Barbara Millis
September 21st, 2007
“The idea for the Overteaching workshop initially came to me when I was mentoring an eager young Captain at the United States Air Force Academy,” confessed Bob Noyd during a recent interview. “Jim was the perfect new faculty member: enthusiastic, caring, supportive, and hard-working. However, he was very disappointed in his students’ performance on the mid-term exam. When I probed more deeply, I discovered that Jim was actually too supportive and hard-working. He was taking the entire responsibility for the course, literally trying to pump his knowledge into the students. I now see parallels between Overteaching and Over-parenting.”
“At the first Overteaching workshop I conducted, we had fun when everyone added their completions to the quip, ‘You know you’re Overteaching when . . ..’ The one I remember best was, ‘You know you’re Overteaching when your hands are on the keyboard, not the student’s.’”
“I have now developed some diagnostic instruments that participants can complete during the workshop to see where they appear on the Overteaching scale. They can look at their own behaviors and work habits as we build a definition of Overteaching.”
“What gave you the idea for what I call the Notetaker workshop?” I asked. “You actually named it A Simple and Effective Way to Drive Content, Promote Thinking and Access Mastery.”
“That was a different inspiration,” Bob noted. “When I looked at my own teaching, I realized that I was Overteaching by handing my students a complete set of Powerpoint (PPT) slides. I wanted to engage them with the material using cooperative learning, problem-solving, and concept mapping, and so I started building gaps in the notes that students had to complete individually or interactively. I was able to build creative teaching techniques directly into the handouts so that students needed to become engaged in class to complete the notes. Faculty and TAs attending this workshop will actually build a Notetaker for their own class during the session.”
“My inspiration for the workshop, Selecting Effective Instructional Strategies, goes back to the over-reliance on PPT slides. A lot of people think of PPT as the ultimate delivery method for lectures. But, what if the end goal is to teach students something practical, a skill they can use in the real world? What if the knowledge isn’t something they can simply memorize? I thought of knot-tying. Could I use PPT to teach students the various knots they might use to strap a kayak, or a bed frame, or a bicycle to their car roof? Then, I thought of the kind of tests that PPT promotes. I almost started laughing! Sure, if I want my students to do well on a multiple choice test where they select the correct knot from options A, B, C, or D, then PPT will work well. But, if I want my students to actually tie real knots during varying conditions, then PPT will likely not work.”
“During the workshop, I will challenge participants to learn to tie several knots as they reflect on their own courses to discover if they have inadvertently built in a misalignment of learning goals and teaching strategies or if their tests are out-of-whack with those learning goals. It will be fun!”
“All the workshops sound like fun!” I concluded. “I’ll be cheering at all three of them!”
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