8. Team teach. Help your institution offer more teaching journals. Read three novels every sum-
linked courses such as English I plus Intro to mer—one old, one new, and one of your best
Sociology or Intro to Teacher Education plus Intro friend’s choosing.
to Economics. Help students draw out relation- Implementing changes in students’ attitudes about ~—
ships. reading depends on you. If we want students to have

9. Fight for small class sizes. The fewer the students, an appreciation for reading, we are the ones to develop
the more time to help them. Keep the reading and it.
writing courses well under 20 students. There is
simply not time to respond to 30 or 40 assignments Thomas L. Hansen, Consultant, Education
per section each week. These are the building-
block courses in which students should be getting a For further information, contact the author at the
strong foundation for completion of their certifi- Department of Curriculum Improvement, Illinois State
cate, two-year degree, or possible university Board of Education, 100 N. 1st Street, Springfield, IL
coursework. 62777.

10. Become an example. Read everything. Subscribe
to the local newspaper, to business magazines, to

SECS

Curiosity and Problem Finding/Solving: &®
Powerful Teaching/Learning Allies =

In my humanities course I encourage my students to “What is it?” or “What does it do?” or “Do you know
become “artists,” though they secretly resent the idea where it comes from?” or “What is wrong with it?”
as another crazy gimmick by a less-than-orthodox It is essential to point out to the students that how
instructor. In the humanities course, students are the problem is stated or defined will determine, in
bombarded with hundreds of images which are to be great part, how it is answered—the narrower the
discussed and memorized for later testing. Unless the definition, the narrower the solution. Ask a student,
student has retained at least one feature of the image, “What do you use a camera for?” and the answer
typically he will not recall the image during the identi- might be, “To take pictures.” But the question “What
fication portion of the objective test. Reluctantly, the can a visual artist gain from using photography?”
students have accepted the corollary to the artist requires answers that might encompass a larger
scneme that “problem finding” can achie ve many collection of ideas about related disciplines (i.e.,
surprising learning experiences. advertisement, graphic design, etc.).

With this strategy, | encourage my students to
explore their classroom environment carefully, and I Alberto Meza, Assistant Professor, Humanities & English
encourage the sensitivity of a student’s momentary
curiosity. I frequently include stimuli that are unique, For further information, contact the author at Miami-
original, or, at times, slightly bizarre—an unusual Dade Community College, Medical Center, 950 NW
object or a portion of a larger object, which has some- 20th St., Miami, FL 33127.

thing to do with the development of culture some-
where on our planet. I begin by asking the obvious:

—
Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
October 16, 1992, Vol. XIV, No. 24 INNOVATION ABSTRACTS is a publication of the Natonal Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD),
©The University of Texas at Austin, 1992 Department of Educational Administration, College of Education, EDB 348, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Further duplication is permitted by MEMBER 78712, (512) 471-7545. Funding in part by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly
institutions for their own personnel. when classes are in session during fall and spring terms. ISSN 0199-106X.