Robin W. Dawes
2004

My philosophy of teaching is founded on two principles. The first is that successful teaching is essentially an interaction rather than a transmission process. The second is that teaching without context is unsound.

Michael Levison, now Professor Emeritus in the School of Computing, once said: "Teaching and learning are not symmetric activities. Our students learn computer science, but we don’t teach computer science. We teach computer scientists."

I believe that this encapsulates an essential truth – we teach best when we connect, as human beings, to our students. In a technical field such as computer science this may be more challenging than in the humanities, but it is no less critical. Without this connection, we are at best lecturing our students (and they may indeed be learning something) – but we are not teaching them.

Stephen Jay Gould said that science is a contingent human activity, meaning that the process and the outcome of scientific enquiry depend on the persons involved. This is equally true of teaching. The process and outcome of a teaching attempt depend on the persons involved, more than on anything else.

However, I do not accept that this necessitates adopting either of those extremes of teaching styles known as "teacher-centred" and "student-centred". In the former, the teacher is the focus of the all class meetings. This is a not-uncommon model in large classes where the communication is virtually all one-way. In the latter, there is a risk of the teacher surrendering all authority over the progress of the course.

In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer makes a case for "subject-centred" teaching, as an alternative to either teacher-centred or student-centred teaching. In this model, which I consider to be highly effective, the instructor and the students are brought together by their common interest in the subject. Communication becomes many-to-many, but the instructor retains special status in the class on the grounds of their authority and expertise. I believe that if this environment is to be achieved, then students must recognise that they and their instructors are not different species of scholar, but are actually travellers at different stages of the same journey. Of course we as instructors must recognise this too, but this should be less of a challenge since we have access to memories of our own academic development.

Thus I see my role as a teacher as offering two things to my students:

1. Expertise. Material presented should illuminate rather than duplicate material available from texts and other sources. Regardless of whether this is always achievable, students should expect to leave each class or other interaction with the teacher with a broader or deeper understanding of the material than they had before. The teacher should expect to leave each class with an appreciation that the students have indeed learned something of value.
2. Engagement. If I want my students to care enough about the material to learn it in any meaningful way (as opposed to memorising enough to pass the final exam), then I must show them that I, as a computer scientist, personally care about this material. More, I must try to show them why I care. Louis Schmier (Professor of History at VSU, Georgia) has suggested that if the teacher and the students are not all looking forward to every class meeting, then something needs to be improved. This is probably an unattainable ideal, but I completely concur with the spirit. I spend time before every class meeting reviewing not just the technical material to be covered that day, but also reminding myself why I want to share this material with the students.

In terms of the classroom environment, I have always felt that one of the largest barriers to creating a successful learning and teaching experience is the invisible glass wall that separates the students from the instructor. Psychologically, it is as real as the barrier imposed by a television screen. It must be dissolved in order to create the type of human connection that I consider essential. Dissolving this barrier has nothing to do with surrendering control of the classroom – it has everything to do with establishing a classroom atmosphere of inquiry and shared knowledge construction.

No course should be taught as if its subject matter existed in isolation. The artificial compartmentalisation of knowledge is certainly a condescension, and certainly an unnecessary one. A student does not suffer cognitive collapse if, during a calculus class, the instructor adds a relevant comment regarding French history. We must give our students credit for being able to entertain more than one idea at a time. Further, it is important to bear in mind that the manner in which we as academics have sliced the world into discrete subject domains is entirely arbitrary. A classic example is the proliferation of statistics courses throughout the science departments. Clearly this subject is a branch of mathematics, but just as clearly it falls into the intersection of mathematics with many other fields. How could it be appropriate to teach this subject as though it were unrelated to anything outside of mathematics?

My objection to the compartmentalisation of knowledge goes beyond its artificiality. I believe that it is actually dangerous, and detrimental to learning. It is dangerous because every domain of human knowledge has a moral dimension. We do not have the right to impose our own moral and ethical viewpoints on our students, but we have a responsibility to remind them that actions and decisions have consequences. As teachers, we are supposedly helping our students develop skills and characteristics that will serve them well in life. By presenting a subject as though it existed in a limbo, devoid of relationships to the rest of our experience, we effectively imply that these relationships are unimportant. I assert that this is directly contrary to the goals of education.

Compartmentalisation is detrimental to learning in that it robs students of the opportunity to immediately anchor new knowledge in the context of what they know and value. It is widely recognised that such anchoring is a valuable learning tool. Adding context to our teaching increases student interest in the material, and may even inspire students to explore linkages on their own.

My philosophy of teaching is perhaps summed up in just a few words: teaching is most successful when informed by the recognition of its human dimensions.