March 2008

A Word from the Director

Normally, we use this space to feature a post from the PETAL Blog, but this month will be a compilation of several posts and other thoughts, partly because there is a lot going on in the next few weeks and partly because we have moved the PETAL Blog.

I have written quite a bit lately about the blogging software CommentPress, so we have decided to move the PETAL Blog to CommentPress. It can now be found at http://blog.usapetal.net. We hope you will subscribe to and participate in our blog. If you are using IE7 or Firefox, it is very easy to subscribe (to this or any other blog) using RSS (i.e., "Really Simple Syndication") Simply click the RSS button  on your browser's toolbar and choose how you want to subscribe.

On other fronts, it occurred to me recently that it was just over one year ago that I saw an ad in the Chronicle about an opening at the University of South Alabama to be the Director of something called “PETAL.” Since then, I have done quite a bit of thinking about the “enhancement of teaching and learning” in higher education.

I’ve offered and/or attended many PETAL seminars, workshops, and other activities for faculty on ways to improve their teaching. I’ve talked with many faculty here and at other institutions about teaching issues in today’s college classroom. I’ve also talked with faculty about the use of technology in the classroom as well as about how it can allow teaching and learning to take place or continue outside of the classroom.

I’ve even often wondered if “enhancement” is the proper “E” word in PETAL, and if “excellence” might be a better choice, but that debate is for another time.

What really stands out among all of my musings and mutterings on the subject, however, is that excellence in teaching is an essentially meaningless concept.

For example, if you were to write a “great” poem, and no one, or at least very few of your readers, understood it, that lack of appreciation could then be attributed to any number of things that do not directly reflect on the inherent quality of the poem. And it would be natural and perfectly reasonable to blame this on the audience for the poem not being suitably prepared or sophisticated enough to recognize, and therefore benefit from, your poem’s obvious greatness.

Teaching, however, is another matter entirely.

If I were to give a great lecture, and no one, or at least very few of my students, understood it, then it simply wasn’t a great lecture after all. By any standard. And even if the audience for the lecture was not suitably prepared or sophisticated enough to benefit from its brilliance, that is the fault of the lecture and lecturer, not of the audience.

Therefore excellence in teaching can only be measured by excellence in learning, and as teachers we must never forget that what we say is not nearly as important as what our students hear. To evaluate our success as teachers by any other measure is a corruption of the purpose of the University.

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