What Are the Three
Worst Mistakes to Make
in the Classroom?
Presented by:
Dr. Maryellen Weimer
MAGNA
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The Three Worst Mistakes to Make in the Classroom
Supplemental Materials
by Maryellen Weimer
Mistake # 1 – Let content dictate instructional decision making
Marshall Gregory, an English professor at Butler University, has written a fine essay that
explores the role of content in learning. In the excerpt below, he discusses why we have students
learn certain content. Some discussion questions follow, which I hope will encourage you to
think more about Gregory’s point and more importantly about the extent to which content
influences your instructional decision-making.
“In my view, the curriculum is a means to an end, not an end in itself, which means that there is
no intrinsic reason whatever that says that my students must appreciate the art, ideas, or
historical position of Gray’s “Elegy” [“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas
Gray]. Once students leave my course, it is a fair bet that not a single one of them will ever
again have to read or even hear a reference to eighteenth-century British poetry in their whole
lives. Should I conclude that those who do not learn to love this poem, or that the unwashed
crowds in other courses who will never read it at all, are somehow uneducated slobs? To think
that there is some intrinsic value in learning about the “Elegy” would be to treat the curriculum
as an end, not a means.
“If maximum coverage is the end of education, then there are no educated persons, because even
the most deeply educated among us merely scratch at the surface of all there is to know.
“My point is that teachers who love specific kinds of content often misrepresent the kind of
usefulness that content will have for most of their students. Mostly, students do not get educated
because they study our beloved content. They get educated because they learn how to study our
beloved content, and they carry the how of that learning with them in the world as cognitive and
intellectual skills that stick long after the content is forgotten. In short, the curriculum is not an
end in itself.”
Reference: Gregory, M. (2005). Turning water into wine: Giving remote texts full flavor
for the audience of Friends. College Teaching, 53 (3), 95-98.
Questions:
—Do you agree with Gregory? Or does the veracity of his point depend on the content? Why or
why not?
—How much content is enough — in a survey course for nonmajors? In an introductory course
for majors? In a senior seminar?
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—At what point, do we need to challenge the assumption that more is always better when it
comes to course content?
—What would you see as the difference between covering content and using it? Is that
distinction the same thing Gregory is talking about when he proposed content should be the
means not the end?
—If your students took last semester’s final three weeks into the new semester, how well would
they score? To what degree would these scores be a function of how they studied? To what
degree would they be a function of the instructional methods you used to teach them?
Here’s another great source that explores the difference between using content and covering
content. Isn’t this a great title for a book?
Finkel, D. L. Teaching with your Mouth Shut. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Publishers, 2000.
Mistake # 2 — Make decisions about who can and can’t learn
—Do you think faculty should tell students they don’t have what it takes to major in something?
Does the profession demand that professors act as gatekeepers?
—Should going to college be an opportunity for everybody? Why or why not?
—Once an institution admits a student, what obligations do they have to help that student
succeed?
—Have you ever made a mistake about who will and won’t succeed in your course? Has student
you never thought would make it, ended up succeeding? What happened?
There are some old but good movies that make this point: Stand and Deliver and Dead Poets
Society are two of my favorites. And when you despair about the caliber of student you are trying
to teach, you might want to read Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary. It is definitely a book that
makes you believe everybody can learn.
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Mistake # 3 – Experience is the best teacher
Here’s an interesting quote from another of my favorite articles.
“ One day at the driving range, I was demonstrating my swing while remarking, ‘Practice makes
perfect.’ [My golf instructor’s] disarming response was, ‘Only if you begin with a good swing. My
advice to you is to either stop practicing or change your swing.’ In teaching, as in golf, repeating
poor teaching mechanics can actually move us away from, not closer to, our performance objective of
effective student learning. ”
Whetten, D. A. “Principles of Effective Course Design: What I Wish I Had Known About
Learner-Centered Teaching 30 Years Ago.” Journal of Management Education, 2007, 31 (3),
339-357.
—What is Whetten saying about experience in this quote and how does it relate to instructional practice?
—What are the most important lessons you’ve learned from experience? Have you tested the
veracity of these lessons? How? By doing what?
—Did you ever draw a conclusion from your experience in the classroom and then discover later that
you’d come to the wrong conclusion?
—If you have a colleague who has drawn some questionable conclusions from his experiences, can you
help him or her find their way to other conclusions? How? By doing what?
General Discussion Questions
—Do you agree? Are these mistakes?
—Which one of the mistakes is most serious? Which one is made most frequently?
—Are these the most serious mistakes college teachers make? What would your list contain, had
you been asked to give a program on this topic?
—Do new teachers tend to make different mistakes than more experienced ones make? What
mistakes do new teachers make more often?
—Are the mistakes teachers make related to the kind of content they teach? For example, do
math teachers make different mistakes than composition teacher?
—Teachers don’t just make mistakes. They also do many things right. If you were asked to give
a program on the three things teachers at your college or university do well what would you list?
If the question was what are the three things you do well, what would the answer be?
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