October 1, 2005

Brian Campbell

Philosophy of Teaching Statement

Goals

I have three principle goals as a history instructor: develop a sense of historical awareness among my students, provide them practical writing and communication skills, to encourage critical thought. My own research deals with the historical awareness of East Germans. Did they think of themselves as German? Did they retain local and regional identities? Who were they and how did their beliefs shape their physical environment? History helps students discover who they are and how the world around them has emerged. It often overturns held assumptions and illuminates the complexity of the human condition. History also exposes students to ideas and cultures other than their own, giving them an appreciation of their place in the world.

Being exposed to historical arguments does not make a student an aspiring historian, however. This happens when a student can effectively construct and present his or her own interpretation of history in an effective essay. I believe that my experience at the University of Rochester gives me an excellent foundation to teach good writing. I taught the Freshman writing requirement five times while working as a tutor in the College Writing Program. The University of Rochester supports its instructors through seminars discussing teaching methods and pedagogical theory. What I gained most from this training was the belief that writing can be taught and that students can improve. I believe that writing is a process that begins with careful reflection about a subject and which requires several drafts before producing a final product with an effective thesis. No matter how rewarding students may find history classes, the fact is that very few undergraduates will pursue history as a career. But no matter what path they take, I want students to benefit from the practice of good writing.

History truly emerges when good writing and historical understanding come together in critical thought. This is the point when ideas transcend facts and data. It also marks a student's emergence as an independent thinker. My ultimate goal is that when students leave the classroom, they can bring the skills of historical analysis and clear expression together to help them make important decisions. Collecting evidence and making decisions is an essential part of every day life from family life, to work and participating in the public sphere. Critical thought creates good citizens involved in society and the world around them.

Methods

As a teacher, I use an array of classroom methods: lecture, class discussion, group work, assessment and electronic resources. A lecture should be like a good story. Students need to know that history is not a sullen march of dates and facts to be paraded out like a drill team. It is more like a puzzle or mystery and sometimes the facts either aren't in a straight line, or they fit in different ways. When I lecture, I incorporate competing arguments to show them that there may be true facts, but it is hard to make true history. For example, when I lecture on the Holocaust, I discuss the functionalist and internationalist debate and what their arguments are. Most students will already know that millions died in camps and shootings; what they should learn is how to consider its causes, intent and how or whether it was unique. I try to keep lectures interactive. I usually start a class by asking the students what they know, or at least what they think they know. This keeps students alert and aware while giving me an opportunity to debunk some myths. I find that visual material keeps lectures fresh and students involved. When I lectured on the problems of the Balkans before the First World War, I showed them a map of the region's ethnic groups. I asked the class, how do people make borders? Why would people choose to create nation states? What kinds of problems would this create?

The best student involvement comes from class discussion, usually organized around a historical idea or a reading for the day. I use resources from across the disciplines to spark discussion: literature, music, art, architecture and original documents. If arguments derived from lectures remain internalized in a student, or the student does not believe he or she can challenge the teacher's interpretation, history classes can fall into a trap where the teacher's beliefs are grafted on to the student. To me, this seems intellectually dishonest and can encourage students to sit back and drop out. Class discussion also allows students to bring their own interests to the table. To spark discussion, I typically require students to give presentations to the class. This allows students to develop expertise on the subject they need to present and it requires them to consider the classroom as their audience. I believe that my role in class is to guide students towards important questions, but to leave them to find their own answers. Topics such as the legacy of socialism do not lend themselves to tidy explanations, after all historians continue to wrestle with the question. Students must be able to think for themselves as to which interpretation best fits the facts they have been presented.

I often have students perform group work to encourage collaboration and to create a classroom community. Once, after lecturing about 1848 and the rise of nationalism, I broke my class into groups. Each group read and discussed the writings of Hungarian, German and Irish nationalists. When the class reassembled, each group presented their findings in relationship to the lecture and then we compared the different nations to one another. When possible, I have students engage in peer review. Students exchange papers among one another and comment on strengths and weaknesses. This not only provides students with feedback, but by looking at others' historical arguments, students can develop better analytical and writing strategies.

Student assessment is also an important pedagogical tool. I see grading less as a mark of the student's performance than a continuation of the dialogue between student and teacher. In practical terms, this means that students receive a typed page of comments about their essays, much in the same way historians receive feedback through book and article reviews. Ultimately, students should be held accountable in the same way I am, by other historians offering their expert opinions. By typing out comments, I am prevented from correcting papers so students can "fix" them. It is then up to the students to continue the historical debate in revisions and rewritten essays.

Technology in the classroom can be a valuable means of reaching out to students. E-mail and programs like Blackboard and WebCT not only bind me to my students, but students to one another. I am familiar with HTML programming and use DreamWeaver to design course web pages. Websites keep students informed about changes to the class and serve as a portal to other Web resources. With a syllabus on the Web, students always know when assignments are due.

Most importantly, I feel I should be a good mentor to my students. Students should feel free to express themselves in the classroom and know that my door is always open. Numerous times, I have driven or walked to campus to meet with a student during evenings or weekends. I make an effort to get to know all of my students by name, even in large survey courses. At the beginning of the semester, I use classroom photos as my computer wallpaper to get to know my students better and hopefully within a few weeks I know them all by name. It is hard to describe this without sounding like a cliché, but it is this intangible enthusiasm that motivates me to wed my goals to methods and to convey the intellectual excitement of history to my classes.