My model for setting classroom expectations is a green giant. No, not the jolly green one of vegetable fame, but the playful, disruptive, yet effective Green Knight of the 14th-century romance Gawain and the Green Knight. The scenario unfolds like this: Until his arrival, King
It’s no wonder employers highly value college grads that are already good team players (Finley, 2021), not only because the ability to collaborate is key to professional success but also because developing this skill set is no easy task. As faculty, we know this all
Why don’t more college instructors use active learning? Research shows that active learning increases student achievement and retention and can enhance diversity in STEM programs by narrowing the achievement gap for traditionally underrepresented students (Theobald et al., 2020). While active learning use among college instructors
Last week we discussed our use of local businesses to create an authentic learning experience for our students by having them solve real-life business problems. Here, we discuss how to create a similar experience in other courses.
Like many college faculty, my first teaching experience was in graduate school. I was woefully unprepared to teach but blissfully ignorant of that fact. I had sat through three informal meetings on how to teach given by fellow graduate students who had taught a few
Authentic learning is “real-life” situational learning relevant to students’ studies (Iucu & Marin, 2014). Case study, simulation, problem-based learning, and gamification are types of authentic learning. These inquiry-based learning experiences engage students in investigation, analysis, application, problem solving, and teamwork, providing connections to the world
How might a teacher address the following moment in a college classroom?
Students are discussing a course reading about the rising cost of higher education and President Biden’s plan to address growing student loan debt. Three white students comment on the subject. A fourth student, the
What do you want your students to learn? What really matters to you?
I’ll give you an example. William Carlos Williams once wrote,
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
One of the most important developments in online education is closing the gap between content and engagement by making online learning content interactive. Instead of reading an article or watching a video and then engaging with it later in discussion or an assignment, apps allow
Books and journals on college teaching are chock full of best practices, compelling activities, and successful ideas for the classroom. These resources do help, but also helpful are experiences at the unsuccessful end of the teaching spectrum. I am referring to clinkers – those best practices that
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This article first appeared in the May 2002 issue of The Teaching Professor.
My model for setting classroom expectations is a green giant. No, not the jolly green one of vegetable fame, but the playful, disruptive, yet effective Green Knight of the 14th-century romance Gawain and the Green Knight. The scenario unfolds like this: Until his arrival, King Arthur’s court seems disengaged. Arthur is described as boyish; in fact, he is refusing to eat until he has been entertained. He wants a story—fantastical ones are best—or some marvelous feat. Into this scene comes the Green Knight, and within only a few stanzas manages to discipline the rowdy king, awaken his sleeping men, and draw out the reluctant Gawain (who appears more inclined to rest upon his reputation for being the best in the class rather than undertake new challenges). Gigantic, well-dressed, and well-equipped, not to mention green, the Green Knight seems to be exactly what the king had been wishing for—a magical solution to his boredom.
It is not, however, these characteristics, that account for the pedagogical wonders he performs. Rather, it is that he clearly states his purpose from almost the moment of his entrance. He does not prolong his bewildered audience’s confusion, but quickly clarifies his intent: The Green Knight will lay bare his neck and let Gawain take the first swipe (with tools he himself will supply.) A year and a day from now, Gawain will do the same for him. A “year and a day from now” is a standard deadline for those embarking on a quest and even its apparent risks are considerably less than they initially appear.
To be sure Gawain understands the terms of their agreement, the Green Knight asks him to repeat it. In other words, he establishes an oral contract. “Recount we our contract,” he intones, one that binds them both to this quest. He even goes first, risking his neck to ensure that Gawain risks his, and modeling the behavior he seeks to encourage. And he does all this in language Gawain can understand, this shared contract transforming what had been his absolute (and even somewhat threatening) difference into a shared identity. They are both players in the same game—and game it is, for the giant is fully aware that they could never truly compete, his abilities so clearly exceed those of Gawain. So when he walks away from this initial encounter unscathed, we know that Gawain will insist on taking his turn as well.
Gawain does fulfill his assignment, showing up in a year and a day, and the court, reassured by his commitment to this quest, emerges more united. Most significantly, our hero completes his quest actually having learned something about himself. In seeking this test of his abilities and keeping the difficult terms of his contract, he learns more than anything else that he is capable of learning and that complacency, even in what are his clear merits, prohibit from understanding his true self.
For as it turns out, the Green Knight was somewhat deceptive. What mattered to him were not so much the material conditions of their arrangement, even the defining and evaluative nick on his neck, but that Gawain learn for himself—undertake the requisite journey. Indeed, the point (of that finely honed axe)—and the lesson I have learned from the Green Knight—was that without these clearly defined conditions none of these marvels could have occurred.
A summary of what I’ve learned and how I accomplish those lessons follows:
Cynthia Richards, PhD, is a professor of English at Wittenberg University.
