It's time now for our Bulldog Conversation, Brad Radice back with you
and I'm joined by Dr. Stephen Chew, the chair of our psychology department here
at Samford University. He's also a Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year. Dr.
Chew thanks for joining us. [Stephen Chew] Thanks for having me. [Brad] Well you've done some
fascinating work on teaching and learning writing about it talking about
it, and recently had an article in Inside Higher Ed just walk us through that
article, give us the cliff notes of what what you're arguing in and what's really
happened in the field of teaching and learning. [Stephen Chew] Teaching and learning is going
through a real revolution right now. There's been a huge amount of research
in last 20 years how people learn and sort of trying to tailor teaching to
what we know about like the constraints of the brain and how the brain learns
best and a lot of that research isn't really filtering down to the frontline
teachers or the students so what I've really been trying to do is to take this
information and put it in a form that teachers can actually use to improve
their teaching and then also put it in a form that students can use so they can
actually make sure that their study habits are the most effective possible.
[Brad Radice] And, I don't know if it's as simple as saying what's the the number number one
tip on how to learn or how to teach is there something that's simplistic that
someone can try to employ or or look for? [Stephen Chew] Well that's that's a great point Brad
and the answer that is actually no. You can't simplify teaching there's
there's an old saying by a guy named Parker Palmer that the great teaching
can't be reduced to technique so you can't say I'll always do this and I'll
always be effective. So teaching is a matter of adaptation so you have a group
of students who comes in each group of students is unique every teacher knows
that, and so each class you have creates their own norms and their have their own
characteristics and the teacher has to adapt their presentation style the
way they help the way they will sort of make assignments to tailor that
to the particular class and that's really what's critical. How do
does a teacher go about making that adaptation because they have to, only
really sort of ineffective teachers try to do the same thing over and over again
and never make adaptation. [Brad Radice] What are you seeing on the front lines
as a teacher with with students in a classroom on a daily basis, how much
have they changed over the years? [Stephen Chew] They being the students well the you know of
course technology has changed a lot and so that has been been both a blessing
and a curse. You know they have a great deal of information at their
fingertips but they have a great many ways of distracting themselves also.
And then a lot of the information you have available to them is not
necessarily accurate and so you have to kind of make them really really savvy
consumers of information and you have to show them that knowing is different from
having access to the information so just knowing where to find it isn't the same
as actually knowing and understanding the information so it's it really has
changed the way we the way we teach. [Brad Radice] In terms of keeping attention, in attention
spans, how they've changed because of the technology the instant I have to
have everything right now how is that affecting students children or in
teachers. [Stephen Chew] Yeah, it's that's that's a really complex
question so students can attend really well to certain things. I mean people are
not born with great attention spans and so if they get bored then they the
students have many sort of ways of distracting themselves and the the
challenge to the teacher is not to let them get bored, and also to to always
keep in mind where the students attention is. So I when I give
workshops to teachers I tell them that you know a big part of teaching as
attention management knowing where your students attention is and you know
recognize if it's wandering how do you bring it back together and that's that's
actually critical for students also once you recognize that your attention is
wandering you know you've got to sort of refocus back on on your studying or you
just simply are not making the most of your study time.
[Brad Radice] Speaking of studying you have a extremely successful Youtube series 'How
to get the most out of studying' two plus million views. When you created it I
think almost six or seven years ago now did you ever think it would be this big?
[Stephen Chew] No not at all I you know when it when it reached a thousand views I was ecstatic
you know that was five times the number that people predicted right would see it
I knew there was a need for it and I knew that students would find the
information useful and it's really been gratifying to see how it's been well
received by both teachers and students both, so I hope I've contributed. You know
if I had I tell my wife if I actually had like financial savvy I wouldn't gone
into academia, I wouldn't have been a teacher that's right so. [Brad Radice] Good deal, Dr. Steven Chew the chair of
our psychology department here at Samford talking a little teaching and
learning. You've been listening to the Bulldog Conversation.