I believe that the Board of Governors' support of recently established teaching awards, including the Excellence in Teaching Award, has greatly energized interest in and local support of excellence in teaching. And for that, both our teachers and their students owe the Board of Governors a big THANK YOU.

Excellence in Teaching

     Now I would like to share with you some of my thoughts on the nature of excellence in teaching. It is my belief that there are two essential components to effective teaching. First, the material to be learned must be presented in a competent fashion. I shall refer to such a presentation as the lecture. But teaching involves more than lecturing. Learning requires that the students be actively involved. I consider the motivation of student involvement to be the second essential component of effective teaching. It is this second component of effective teaching which I shall emphasize today, but I do not want to discount the importance of the first component, the lecture.

     While I do not have time here today to address the details of the techniques useful in encouraging student involvement, I would like to point out that the techniques I have found most effective have one common element, scholarly conversation among all in the classroom. In using the term "conversation," I do mean to imply that this intercourse is social and often informal. Humans are social creatures, and they learn best in a social context.

• Conversation is intrinsically more interesting than a lecture, so it helps keep the students, and the professor, attentive.
• While the lecture belongs to the professor, the conversation is owned by all in the classroom. Learning becomes the students' accomplishment, not just something imposed on them by a lecturer.
• Conversation allows the students to test their understanding of newly learned material, expressing it in their own words and receiving feedback from others.
• Conversation helps us see the studied material from different perspectives.
• Conversation allows the teacher to judge how well the students have learned the material, and what misconceptions they may have formed. Armed with this information, the effective teacher can re-present the material to reinforce his earlier lecture and to dispel any misconceptions that may have arisen.

A Tale of Two Freshman

     To illustrate the importance of conversation in the classroom, I would like to tell you a tale of two freshmen.

     The first freshman is majoring in biology. Although he is not permitted to take any biology classes his first year, one of his required courses is in a closely related discipline. It is an introductory level chemistry class. This student had been interested in chemistry in high school, but his first college experience with a class in chemistry is killing that interest. Each student is assigned to a particular seat in the large lecture hall. Graduate students walk about the lecture hall, writing down the numbers of the seats which are not occupied. Students who accumulate three absences fail the course. Some students pay others to attend for them. A student in this class can easily feel like he is just a number, not a person. The students are not active participants in this class. There is no conversation, just lecture. The material is presented as if the students will just passively assimilate it, much as a dry, dead sponge soaks up water, not like a living, social creature learns.

     I don't mean to imply that chemistry is a course that cannot be well taught. Clearly it can be well taught, as demonstrated by the fact that two of our award recipients today are professors of chemistry. From a quick reading of the abstracts in our program here today, I noted that Dr. [Gary L.] Poole from Western Carolina University really "gets in his student's face" to promote conversation in the classroom, and that Dr. [Juliette B.] Bell from Fayetteville State University opines that students "learn by doing," and has been instrumental in obtaining for her students the laboratory equipment necessary for them to be involved actively in learning chemistry. Earlier today Dr. [Deborah J.] Cassidy's student [UNC at Greensboro], Carly Baker Chapman, noted Dr. Cassidy's effective use of conversation in the classroom. And I am confident that our other award recipients also employ conversation in the classroom to motivate active student involvement.

     This first freshman was I, Karl Wuensch, 35 years ago. I did not learn much chemistry that year, but, in retrospect, I did learn something valuable - how not to teach effectively.

     My freshman year experience was not what I had expected college to be. I expected college to be a community of scholars, where both faculty and students engage in intellectual exchanges from which all participants learn. Can you imagine how disappointed I was? And my grades reflected my disappointment and lack of involvement. The only A I earned that freshman year was a "I-A" classification from the selective service board, not long after my grade point average dropped to a 1.1. Soon I was headed west, to work with my uncle, -- Uncle Sam that is.

     Our second student is also majoring in biology, in his first semester at a small, private college. As he sits in his required general chemistry class on the first day of classes, he has a feeling of dreadful déjà vu. Yes, our second student is also I, six years later. As the semester progressed, my feeling of dread was replaced with one of joyful excitement. This class was nothing like my earlier chemistry class. The professor soon knew all of the students by name, and called upon them to participate in class discussions. He came to know each student's interests, strengths, and weaknesses, and used this knowledge wisely to maximize the learning experience for each student. Hands-on demonstrations were employed in the classroom and hands-on activities in the laboratory. Students asked questions in class, volunteered comments, and stayed after class to continue discussions with the professor and other students. These students were actively engaged in their own learning. In this learning environment I thrived.

The First Year is a Critical Year

     Please note that my examples involved students in their first year of study at a new institution. It is my belief that the first year is an especially critical year. If students' first year classes do not encourage them actively to participate in their learning, then they are likely to develop habits and attitudes not conducive to effective learning. It may be difficult to change these bad habits and attitudes after that first year -- if the student survives the first year. Regretfully, at many institutions it is those first year classes which are least likely to be presented in a way that encourages the development of active learning. Often these classes are taught with enrollments too large to allow student participation, with no laboratory meetings, or with junior instructors who have not yet learned how to encourage student participation.

     I am pleased to report that in my unit at East Carolina University, there is an increasing recognition of the importance of providing our first year students with excellent teaching. My unit head has been encouraging (some would say coercing) our senior faculty to become involved in the three courses that form the introductory core for our majors. For too long these courses have been covered primarily by junior instructors and part time faculty. For two of these courses, we have managed to keep the enrollment capped at not more than 25 students a class, which allows the professors to promote conversation in the classroom and to give each student individual attention. While I have recently avoided the one course that typically has large enrollments, some of my colleagues have had good success in engaging student interest even in such courses. I could learn much from those colleagues.

     From the abstracts, I noted other award recipients who are involved in teaching students in these first critical courses. Dr. [Michael] Pause at N. C. State is described as being "the heart of our beginning courses - courses that help students make the transition from high school to the School of Design and the university-at-large." Dr. [Deborah Grier] James at UNC Asheville notes that as a freshman writing teacher, part of her responsibility is to introduce her students to the culture of a university.

     I have lectured you long enough. If any of you would like to join me in a conversation on the topic of effective teaching, feel free to contact me later, electronically or otherwise.

     In closing, let me once again thank the Board of Governors for their support of excellence in teaching.