Jennifer Malto
2008-2009 Future Faculty Program Participant

PhD Student/ Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of History
University of Georgia
jmalto@uga.edu

I believe that good university teaching should have more to do with questions than with answers. The value of a university history teacher lies in his or her ability to engage students with the material and encourage them to develop their own questions about and theories of the past. When I enter the classroom, my goal is not to evaluate whether or students can name and date the various governments of the French Revolution but to show students how to use that factual information to understand historical movements and ask questions about why and how things happened the way they did. For example, I have used a journal project in which students had to write about key events of the French Revolution as if they were a historical person experiencing those events; the twist was that they had to write about the same event from more than one perspective, exploring how a "victory" for middle-class men might mean a "defeat" for women or working class men. The goal of the assignment was to teach students not just the facts of history but how to think critically about those facts and how they applied to real people.

But teaching is more than just posing questions. I must also show students how to find and support their own answers to those questions. Students often approach history with the idea that it is a course about truth; I want to convey the idea that it is a discipline full of contested theories open to re-interpretation in light of better evidence. As the instructor (or the more experienced historian) I must help students learn how to construct an argument and defend it with evidence. This is skill that must be developed through example and practice. Students must first learn how to read with a critical mind, asking how an author reached a conclusion and what types of evidence he or she used. By learning to decode the writings of others, students can start to understand how to build their own arguments. Class discussions can work to further this skill, teaching students to go to the text to support their ideas or to refute someone else's. Ultimately, I hope to help students improve this skill in their own writing assignments which will combine reflection on historical texts with knowledge gained in lectures and discussions.

 In this way, I try to teach students how to take ownership of their own knowledge and learning experience, which is another key aspect of my teaching philosophy. Too often students view learning as a passive process in which they receive information and grades. In my classroom, I believe in mutual responsibility and learning as a two-way street. I must come prepared to offer them the tools of learning; they must come prepare to use them. I like to believe that I bring excitement and a positive attitude about teaching and learning to each class. I enter the room prepared to work my hardest to stimulate interest in and thinking about my subject. I expect them to enter each class prepared and willing to be actively engaged with me, the other students and the material. My attitude is that, for both students and teachers, education is a lot like life: you get from it what you put into it and no one else can do it for you. I can only guide and assist them; they must do the work of learning for themselves.

Ultimately, I already know what I think about the French Revolution; I want to learn what my students think about it and why. To me, helping students formulate those questions and articulate those ideas, creating the framework for that intellectual exchange, that is the exciting part of teaching, what it is really all about.