On the Value of Books

Oftentimes there is a positive relationship between the rarity of an object and its perceived value. Postage stamps are an example. The one-cent Tiffany Lamp stamp can be purchased at face value at any United States Postal Service office. In contrast, the one-cent Benjamin Franklin Z Grill stamp is valued at $2.97 million. The difference is that while the Tiffany Lamp can be purchased in coils of 3,000 stamps all across the United States, there are only two remaining Z Grill stamps known to exist. Perhaps it is a similar calculus that explains why in an age of amazon.com and large public libraries that many are so unimpressed with books.

In describing Abraham Lincoln, author Doris Kearns Goodwin writes: "Books became his academy, his college. The printed word united his mind with the great minds of generations past. Relatives and neighbors recalled that he scoured the countryside for books and read every volume "he could get his hands on." At a time when ownership of books remained "a luxury for those Americans living outside the purview of the middle class," gaining access to reading material proved difficult. When Lincoln obtained copies of the King James Bible, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, and William Scott's Lessons in Elocution, he could not contain his excitement. Holding Pilgrim's Progress in his hands, "his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, and that night he could not sleep."" This is the picture of a man who valued the printed word.

John C. Maxwell has said that "highly successful people have a continual thirst for knowledge and are always asking questions." Reading good books is one way that highly successful people gain access to knowledge and find answers to those questions. I have also heard it said that the best way to hide something from a Black man is to put it in a book. I am determined that this will never be said of me. It is my hope that it will never be said of you either. Recent books I've read have helped me become a better leader, build a stronger marriage, improve my parenting skills, and teach more effectively. And I have a list of books in queue waiting to be read. What have you read lately?

Three Paths to Better Teaching

I read a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled 3 Paths to Better Teaching, and When to Stray From Them by David Glenn. The three approaches really resonated with me and I am trying to incorporate them into my undergraduate Probability and Statistics course. Perhaps you will enjoy learning about them too. After all, we are all teachers in some context.

The first approach is to introduce course material in a manner that requires students to think critically and integrate course concepts. I would add to this that the material should be presented in a manner that allows students to build upon what they already know, in a constructivist manner. Good teaching always connects what is unknown with what is already known. The article goes on to say that while this approach results in students’ deeper understanding of the material in the long-term, the approach may also reduce students’ short-term performance. I find this fact particularly interesting. I actually have an NSF Grant focused on this very topic and will be analyzing the data this fall. I can't wait to see the results!

The second approach is to organize learning experiences in a recursive manner such that concepts are repeatedly encountered and re-encountered throughout the semester. Such purposeful redundancy helps students synthesize and master the material. Such redundancy also requires a lot of upfront planning. The goal of this approach is to increase students' long-term retention of facts. In an era where we try to cover so much material in each semester, effectively implementing this strategy can be a challenge. But which is more productive: 1) to cover 80% of the course material and have students retain 75% of it, or 2) cover 100% of the material and have students retain only 25% of it?

The third approach is to help students take ownership of their personal learning experience by becoming more self-aware of their learning styles and study habits. The Learning Connections Inventory that I intend to use next year is designed to accomplish this very objective. The results obtained by other organizations that have used it have been very encouraging.

So the new semester is only two weeks away and I am armed with new approaches. But as in war where "no detailed plan survives engagement with the enemy", none of my best laid pedagogical plans seem to survive engagement with 90-plus USF undergraduates. Thus, as the article suggests, in addition to my role as facilitator and mentor, I must add the role of “pedagogical ecologist” and remain observant and flexible. Sounds exciting. We'll see how it goes. I love my job!