Sociologist David Purcell thinks he did. He shares his method and what he learned from it in a detailed article. Purcell writes for 10 to 15 minutes after every class. If he teaches back-to-back sections, he makes comments on his lecture notes, which he uses to write fuller notes later in the day. He started doing this when he was a teaching assistant and continued it as a new faculty member. Using an autoethnographic analysis (a qualitative research approach), he bases his conclusions about the value of this systematic approach on 43,000 words’ worth of notes from 14 courses written over a four-and-a-half-year period. The individual entries themselves vary from 125 words (when things in class went well) to 400 to 500 words (when things were in need of revision).
Purcell’s notes highlight a variety of instructional issues. They appear in an appendix at the end of his article. He starts with a general assessment of the class session, addressing any contextual factors (low attendance, grim weather, issues with the classroom itself, competing events, or happenings on campus) that he thinks may have affected what happened in class. Then he evaluates the class session a bit more specifically. Did what happened in class meet his learning objectives for the day? Was the balance among lecture, discussion, and class activities appropriate? Did the class meet his expectations? Maybe a discussion went better than he expected; maybe an activity worked less effectively than it had previously. Finally, his notes focus on anything he thinks needs revision. That might be the need for more examples, better questions, a different organizational structure, or updated content.
These areas of focus emerged over time. When Purcell first started teaching, his notes were very pragmatic. They focused on what did and didn’t work in class. As time went on he saw the need for notes that were more critical and reflective. “I wanted to analyze my courses more broadly (i.e., improving entire courses and improving as an instructor) and more narrowly (i.e., evaluating specific examples, class exercises, assignments, and segments of lectures and class periods).” (p. 8)
Purcell believes that writing these notes resulted in teaching improvements in three areas. “First, I have become a more confident, skilled teacher through this practice. I have improved specific aspects of lectures and class assignments, refined my course preparations, and polished certain techniques.” (p. 13) Often impressions about a class session are intuitive, based on feelings, a general sense of what happened. Writing gives those feelings substance. It identifies things a teacher can do something about. And if there are notes from several different times the class has been taught, there is a record not only of what needed to be improved but also of how it was changed; as Purcell notes, that increased “my sense of mastery as a teacher.” (p. 14)
Second, this systematic writing about course events expedites course preparation activities. “Daily preparation also becomes more efficient because you have a record of how successful that particular day was the last time you taught it, as well as any specific revisions you wished to make.” (p.14) Even though the same course may be taught regularly, lots of time and other activities intervene between semesters. And this time lapse is even greater if the course is taught less frequently. How nice to open a file of material and find there a set of notes that suggests where you might most profitably focus your course preparation time.
And finally Purcell believes that this regular reflective writing helped him grow as a sociologist. “Habitually viewing my teaching activities through a variety of sociological perspectives [he describes these in the article] facilitates my use of the classroom as a key site for engaging in praxis.” (p. 15)
For most teachers the issue will be finding the time to do the writing. That would be easier if our disciplines and institutions made professional development more of a priority. There need to be stronger expectations for our growth and development as teachers. However, a system like this can be adapted to fit whatever time a teacher may have. Perhaps the writing is about one class, not all of them. Maybe the writing is done once a week, not every day after every class. The writing does need to be regular and it does need to be read and thought about subsequently if benefits like these are to accrue.
In recent years there has been much writing advocating critical reflection for teachers. Even though this has been defined and described by various scholars—a collection of definitions are included in the article—many faculty still wonder what they should be doing beyond “thinking about” their teaching. What Purcell describes models a way of doing critical reflection, a way of getting beyond general definitions to concrete actions with potential to improve teaching and learning.
Reference
Purcell, D. (2013). Sociology, teaching, and reflective practice: Using writing to improve. Teaching Sociology, 41 (1), 5-19.
