Creating, Sharing, Evolving

I couldn't say how much of my teaching is modeled on that which I received as a student, how much is sui generis, or how much has been borrowed from my peers, but after twenty years of teaching college classes, I've come to take much of my teaching for granted. And then, when I watch talented new teachers, I am quickly reminded what a complex, occasionally painful, more often wonderful evolution this has been. As I am a natural skeptic, I am wary of teaching fads and so I've taken new directions slowly and carefully like an old man getting into a tub of hot water. I did not jump into online pedagogy and active learning waving my arms in the air and shouting "booyah!" Neither did I dismiss them obviously. I also like to give new approaches time to work. In the case of the group work I do with active learning, I introduced it gradually into my teaching to determine to my satisfaction that it would work. And in the end, the teaching we do has to fit our personalities and our strengths, and it has to account for our weaknesses.