Attention, Class!!! 16 Ways to Be a Smarter Teacher

By: Chuck SalterWed Dec 19, 2007 at 12:32 AM

In an economy filled with surprise and uncertainty, being an effective leader means being a good teacher. But how do you lead and teach at the same time? Who are your most important students? And what about recess?

13. Learn what to listen for.

Levi Watkins teaches heart surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where the residents learn by working side by side with attending and faculty surgeons. Before surgery, Watkins asks a resident to walk him through the diagnosis and procedure, as if the tables were turned and he were assisting the trainee. "I'm listening for how the resident assembles all of this information, how well she organizes her thoughts," says Watkins. "Choosing to operate on someone's heart is a very complex decision. You may have a difference of opinion among doctors, but the buck stops there. We're the ones who decide which vessels are worthy or not worthy of a bypass procedure."

When Pepsi's Weatherup visits general managers at one of the company's 300 sites, he pays particular attention to the language he hears. In a manager's analysis of the local market, for example, Weatherup listens for references to the company's overall mission statement or to a new strategy that he has laid out. He's not interested in mimicry. He wants a sense that the manager is thinking about her piece of the business in the right framework. "If I hear the language of the company coming back to me, I know that I'm reaching people," Weatherup says.

He was forced to become a good listener while working in Japan, his first assignment with Pepsi. Because English was a second language to his colleagues, he became sensitive to the emotion behind people's words. He still listens for it today. "I'm interested in people's feelings, not just the latest volume and pricing numbers. I want to know what frustrates them and what they feel good about."

14. Let your students teach each other.

You're not the only one your students learn from. They also learn on their own and from their peers. "That's how the triangle of learning works," says Marilyn Whirry, who teaches 12th-grade AP English at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, California. She's a big believer in small groups. She'll give the groups a question that is based on the book the students are reading, and they have to respond to the previous comment before making a new point. "They listen to each other," says Whirry, the 2000 National Teacher of the Year. "Maybe their friend has an insight that they hadn't thought of. Maybe it's something that they can build on. It's exciting to watch."

Yale's Rando has taken the idea one step further. He has designated small groups to become experts on different topics and then intermingled students in new groups so that they have to teach another person what they've learned. "This method replicates how problems occur in life," he says. "Everybody has a piece of relevant information, making everyone a teacher and a learner."

15. Avoid using the same approach for everyone.

Good teachers believe that every student can learn, but they understand that students learn differently. Some are visual. Some grasp the abstract. Some learn best by reading. So the instructor might adopt a multidimensional approach, something along these lines: Lecture for 20 minutes, then pose a multiple-choice question to the class, which is displayed on the board or on a slide. Next, ask everyone to write down an answer to the question, and then have people take turns explaining it to someone else in class. After several minutes, poll the class to find out who chose which answer. Then ask someone from each of those groups to explain their answer. Rando calls this "active lecturing."

16. Never stop teaching.

Effective teaching is about the quality of the relationship between the teacher and the student. It doesn't end when the class or the workday is over. "I try to stay away from a 9-to-5 attitude, which means that for the hour you're here, I care about you, but don't bother me afterwards," says Kaplinsky, the Juilliard professor. "One of the most important ingredients of teaching is loving it. I come from Israel, where we have a saying: 'More than the calf wants to suck its mother's milk, the mother wants to impart the milk to the calf.' "

That concludes our lesson on teaching. Any questions? Anyone? All right then. Class dismissed.

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com), a Fast Company senior writer, tries to teach the fundamentals of baseball, softball, and soccer to kids in Baltimore.