Confused about what works teaching American college students? If you didn’t grow up in the U.S.—or go to an American-style university yourself—you might be deeply surprised at what today’s American students expect. Alternatively, if you are teaching science at a university very different in culture than the one you went to as an undergraduate, you might sometimes feel like you’ve been given a teaching assignment on a different planet entirely. Just what do these students expect, anyway?
To take a step back in thinking about how to teach American students, one philosophical pathway you could mistakenly take is to hold a stance that students should conform to learning from the manner in which you most want to teach—the information-download lecture. For example, if you learned best by watching a distinguished professor lecture on and on without taking a single breath to a room full of diligent and well-behaved students, you “could” expect, or even demand, that of your students. However, if you choose to do no more than provide outstanding lectures—no matter how articulate and comprehensive your lectures are—you will acquire lousy end of course teaching evaluations from most American students. I argue that this would be a mistake.
Instead of throwing up your hands in disgust, it is worth considering what students attending American-style universities expect. After all, acknowledging and managing your students’ expectations can go a long way toward improving your end of course teaching evaluations. Moreover, if you are in the market for a new job teaching at an American university, you need to know how to speak eloquently about modern teaching in a way that makes you a highly attractive candidate for a faculty job. Here is what you need to know.
In general, American students expect a modern teaching style from their professors that many of us—especially for those of us from other countries—find rather unusual. The most important thing that students now expect—and the university faculty hiring committees want to hear—is that you are committed to building your teaching around the principles of active learning. In other words, professors at American-style universities are expected to fully engage students in discussion and critical thinking learning activities during class and provide authentic homework assignments that look more like creative projects than repetitive practice drills. This inclination toward providing active learning experiences is true when teaching large-enrollment classes for non-science majors as well as small, graduate-level seminar classes. Moreover, today’s professors are expected to have flexible skills in using a wide-range of testing and grading techniques that go far beyond assigning grades based on only one or two high-stakes exams during the semester. If you’re looking to get a new teaching job, you need to not only be able to unequivocally state to the hiring committee that student-centered active learning is your philosophical commitment, but you would be well advised to also provide illustrative examples of what active learning looks like when you are teaching.
In addition to knowing that American universities by and large expect you to be committed to active learning approaches to teaching, you also would be well advised to be sensitive and responsive to some of the unique cultural aspects of many American universities. For one, American students strongly believe in the concept of individualism in that they believe they should be largely in control of their own lives which sometimes comes into conflict with structures you put in place as their professor. American students often feel it is appropriate to question why you created the course the way you have, whether or not they actually need to do the assignments and inquire about you changing a initially assigned grade. In America, such questioning of authority is not considered disrespectful, and is often encouraged among youth.
Despite frequent news reports of discrimination, most Americans generally believe everyone is of mostly equal standing, regardless of age, sex, or bestowed honors. You will find students highly uncomfortable with overt displays of respect, such as being bowed to or being asked to stand when a professor enters the classroom. In the same way, Americans are highly informal both in dress and in speech as compared to students from elsewhere. Don’t be offended if students initially address you by your first name or begin an email with the salutation of saying, “Hey!” (It is acceptable to inform students by what name or title you wish to be addressed.) This widespread cultural aspect of American students can be mistaken for rudeness or irreverence by professors unfamiliar with American culture.
Many Americans hold the belief that learning is the same thing as memorizing and initially react to being asked to think flexibly and critically in a class as being posed a “trick question.” A byproduct of this belief is that schooling is rarely one’s highest priority in day to day life. Professors teaching in American-style universities would be well advised to take time to explain to their students WHY each assignment or task is being assigned. American students do often react positively to accomplishing tasks that have clearly explained valuable relevance and react negatively to what they perceive to be unnecessary busy-work.
As with all generalizations, the generalizations proposed here are overly simplified and incorrect in specifics. However, being aware of these aspects of American culture can help you do a better job teaching science to American college students. For sure, the United States is a geographically enormous collection of largely independent states, each with their own regional cultural identities and disconnected educational systems. There is no national curriculum across the United States. Taken together, this makes teaching science in the U.S. arduous course of action, but highly worthy of the challenge.
Tim Slater, University of Wyoming, Tim@CAPERteam.com
Suggested citation: Slater, T. F. (2019, March). Teaching science to American students. Society of College Science Teachers Blog, 4(8), https://www.scst.org/blog
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