The Teaching of Psychology in Autobiography: Perspectives from Exemplary Psychology Teachers Edited by Trisha A. Benson, Caroline Burke, Ana Amstadter, Ryan Sidey, Vincent Hevern, Barney Beins, & Bill Buskist.
22 Mentoring Is as Mentoring Does G. William Hill IV Kennesaw State University pp. 149-156

I received my Bachelors degree in psychology in 1972 from the University of Georgia (UGA). A few months later, I was invited, otherwise known as drafted, to spend 2 years in the U.S. Army, where I served as an enlisted personnel psychologist, a fancy title for administering aptitude tests to potential recruits. Returning to UGA after my tour of duty, I received my Masters (1977) and PhD (1979) degrees in experimental psychology.

I accepted an assistant professor appointment in 1979 at Kennesaw State University (KSU), and have remained there throughout my career. I have been a teaching faculty member, department chair, associate vice-president for academic affairs, and acting vice-president for academic affairs. Currently, I am the Director of the KSU Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning.

My professional interests and research have primarily revolved around teaching-related issues, such as applications of technology in teaching, grading practices and strategies, and incorporating cross-cultural issues into the psychology curriculum. I founded the annual Southeastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology (SETOP), which was recognized in 2001 with the University System of Georgia Regents' Award for Excellence in Research in Undergraduate Education for fostering the scholarship of teaching. I have also served as a steering committee member and onsite coordinator for the Best Practices in Teaching Psychology Conference series, which is cosponsored by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP, Division Two of the American Psychological Association [APA]) and the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology.

I have been involved in service and leadership roles in STP, including its APA Program Chair, Chair of the Long Range Planning Committee, and STP President. In 2003, I was appointed as STP Director of Programming and began to expand STP-sponsored conferences and workshops. I have served in APA governance as a member of the APA Board of Convention Affairs (2003-2006), chairing it in 2004-2005. I was also appointed to the APA Board of Educational Affairs task force that developed suggested learning outcomes for the undergraduate psychology major and the accompanying online Assessment CyberGuide (Halonen et al., 2003).

I received the 1985 KSU Distinguished Teaching Award and the 2004 American Psychological Foundation Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching Award. I was elected as an initial Fellow of APA by STP in 1993, and have subsequently been elected as a Fellow in Divisions 1 (General Psychology) and 52 (International Psychology).

My Early Development as a Teacher

As long as I can remember, my career interest was teaching, a goal that was inspired and reinforced by a series of master teacher mentors and role models. My earliest mentor was a high school history teacher, Ms. Anne Timmie. Not only was she an engaging and creative teacher, she was the first teacher I had who interacted significantly with students outside the classroom. Her approach to mentoring on a more personal level ultimately influenced many aspects of my career. Although I admired my pre-college teachers, I realized that my personality and interests were not suited to a K-12 setting. I preferred the greater freedom associated with college teaching as well as the opportunity to work with more mature students and to avoid the focus on classroom management issues common to K-12 classrooms.

Like many faculty, it was the introductory course that attracted me to psychology. At the same time, it also further stimulated my teaching interests. I was fortunate to take it as a small honors section taught by a master teacher, Richard (Dick) Hazen. Dick's teaching was engaging, and it encouraged students to go beyond the text through use of activities and demonstrations that embodied active learning. The connections that Dick made between teaching and learning also contributed to my early research interests in human learning and memory. Because his primary focus was on teaching, advising, and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, Dick was also unique in a largely research-focused department and he became a life-long mentor and role model for my teaching and service.

Although I wanted to teach, my first teaching experiences occurred late in my graduate training. My initial assistantships were solely research focused. To acquire teaching experience, I requested a teaching assistantship in my final year. Unlike today, with many graduate programs incorporating courses and mentoring programs on teaching, at that time no formal programs existed at UGA. However, I was fortunate to get some "on the job" training and mentoring by two master teachers. In my first quarter of teaching, I was the instructional lab assistant for a learning theory course taught by Dick Hazen and a graduate section of statistics taught by Milton Hodge. These two mentors taught me many of the basic principles I still use today: clear communication through well-developed course materials; developing innovative activities to enhance learning; the importance of availability to students; organization and preparation combined with accepting that the unexpected happens and is the best part of teaching; enthusiasm for your material, even when students are less than enthusiastic about it; the importance of conducting research , but the primacy of working with and helping students learn; and the importance of mentoring new teachers. Being a good teacher takes a lot of work and is a never-ending commitment;.

Despite waiting until my final year of graduate school to teach, I was fortunate to have a wide variety of teaching experiences crammed into a single year. In addition to experiences as an instructional lab assistant, I taught several sections of introductory psychology and the first month of a graduate statistics course when the professor took a medical leave. I also had the unique experience of teaching a learning theory course one-on-one to a homebound disabled student.

Working at Defining Myself as a Teacher

The Early Years

With my first, and ultimately only, academic position, I came to an institution that actively encouraged and honored innovative and creative teaching. When I arrived at KSU, it had just converted from a 2-year to a 4-year institution. Because KSU was primarily a teaching institution at that time, there were few resources for research. In addition, my teaching load (15 courses in three academic quarters per year), combined with multiple new course preparations, made developing a traditional research program extremely difficult. Finally, the reward system emphasized teaching and professional and community service, reflecting KSU's earlier history as a 2-year college.

Because there was no psychology major when I arrived, its development in 1981 provided me with the unique opportunity to familiarize myself with the literature on undergraduate curriculum development. With the addition of new courses to the curriculum, I again found my time consumed by course development. Although I missed the support for traditional discovery research, I began to find a research outlet through developing and assessing new approaches to my teaching. For example, because there were no lab facilities, I had to be creative in my approaches to teaching research methods, which led me to incorporate computer technology through using early simulation and data-gathering programs. As a result, my earliest scholarship of teaching presentations focused on our experiences in implementing computer-based instruction in teaching research methods (Noble & Hill, 1990).

Another early teaching challenge I faced at KSU was its students. Given that KSU was a commuter college and essentially an open-enrollment institution, many students arrived with inadequate academic preparation. In addition, because the average student age was 28, I had students who were my age or much older. I learned that through one-on-one tutoring, detailed feedback, and engaging classroom activities, I could help these students succeed. I also came to value the life experiences and perspectives that older students could add to class discussions. As KSU continues to evolve, it is increasingly attracting traditional- aged students and I find I miss the dynamic of the older student.

I also had exceptional mentors at KSU who contributed to my continuing development as a teacher. In particular, my department chair, Ruth Hepler, found resources that enabled me to expand my teaching repertoire through attending faculty development experiences and conferences on teaching. Ruth also encouraged my interest in cross-cultural psychology through providing funds for international study and travel and supporting the development of a cross-cultural psychology course in 1987. I discovered, however, that there were relatively few resources for teaching a cross-cultural perspective at that time. In fact, the only undergraduate cross-cultural psychology text was out of print. Therefore, I had to identify readings, work with the library to obtain journals and books, and create activities to engage students. As interest in teaching a cross-cultural psychology increased, I began to publish resources and teaching activities (Hill, 1992, 1998, 2002, 2004). Once again, a teaching-related interest and a mentor's support led to scholarship focused on teaching.

The Undiscovered Country-The Broader Community of Teachers

In 1984 my teaching and professional life changed when I attended the Mid-America Conference for Teachers of Psychology (MACTOP), which was organized by Joe Palladino at the University of Southern Indiana. Attending this conference enabled me to go beyond the confines of my institution, making connections with psychology teachers who shared my interests in innovative teaching and curriculum development. I established a network of colleagues across the country who, in many cases, became mentors and collaborators on my scholarship of teaching.

A major lesson I learned from MACTOP was that there is a large number of faculty who are dedicated to teaching but who may have limited opportunities to connect with faculty outside their home institutions, either because they are unaware of opportunities or have limited travel funds to attend large meetings. Because they have teaching as their primary responsibility and interest, they often see larger conventions (e.g., APA) as oriented more to traditional discovery research and less relevant to their day-to-day responsibilities. As a result, I became committed to developing conferences and workshops that would bring such faculty together to discuss teaching.

Administration-Maybe It is Not the Dark Side

Although I loved the classroom, in 1988, I found myself drawn to academic administration. Over the next 15 years, I accepted a series of administrative positions, resulting in a career shift to mentoring colleagues. I believe that my central role as an administrator is identifying and providing opportunities for the faculty to "be the best they can be" in the classroom and in their research. To that end, my administrative focus has been directed toward facilitating a strong institutional commitment to teaching through funding and support of the scholarship of teaching.

Using resources and opportunities available to me as an administrator, I have focused on developing campus programs and regional conferences that provide practical and research-based ideas, while at the same time recognizing and mentoring faculty to reach beyond their institutional borders in sharing their scholarship. In addition, I expanded my mentoring and faculty development initiatives to include new faculty development and the acquisition of resources to foster the scholarship of teaching on the campus.

The Examined Life of a Teacher

Fostering learning communities, whether composed of teachers or students in the classroom, has been a central theme of my career. To me, these communities are about shared learning. Teaching, and for that matter administration, should not be about the individual teacher or administrator. Neither should it be structured as a one-way experience with the teacher or administrator simply supplying information or directing a student to do some task. There must be give and take and, as a teacher or administrator, you have "to go with the flow," focusing on the needs of the particular community you may be with at the moment. Effective teaching and learning communities are open to and respect new ideas and perspectives. Everyone must have the opportunity to contribute and learn together. Whether students, teachers, or administrators, our shared learning experience should result in individual change and growth.

I have tried to approach my classroom teaching and administrative roles in similar ways, always staying true to the basic tenets of my teaching philosophy. Whether you are facilitating a class or a department meeting, the group needs to have some shared values, but also a respect for diversity of values. Because diversity brings a more dynamic quality to the curriculum and our teaching, I believe it is critical to bring a diversity of perspectives to the table.

Whether it is classroom teaching or an administrative role, I try to make every effort to involve students or faculty as active participants. I try to accomplish this goal through an enthusiastic and positive attitude toward the work, encouraging students and faculty to participate, helping students and faculty make connections among themselves and the material, and attempting to establish an atmosphere where everyone may freely express their thoughts. I challenge students to use the course material as a foundation for life-long learning. Similarly, I challenge and facilitate faculty to be life-long learners, whether it be through traditional discovery research, the scholarship of teaching, or simply adopting new teaching methods. With students, I attempt to accomplish this goal through the development of creative projects and exercises designed to stimulate their interest in the course content and relate it to future career goals. With faculty, I focus on developing learning opportunities through conferences and workshops that bring teachers together to talk about teaching, and I advocate for increased funding for classroom resources and faculty travel to present their scholarship of teaching or simply attend a teaching conference.

Advice for New Teachers

Teaching is hard work and not for the faint of heart. You must have a calling, because to do it well involves long hours, low pay, and often more complaints than compliments. Teaching also operates on a large variable-interval reinforcement schedule, with reinforcers that are rarely monetary. However, an unexpected note of thanks from a student or faculty member about a class or faculty development program is a powerful reinforcer. You will find pleasure in students who ultimately get the concept they have struggled with long and hard or students who demonstrate progressive improvement in their writing. At the same time, you need to learn to pay more attention to the forest than to individual trees. Try to avoid obsessing over those few negative comments among a chorus of positive ones or that one student who tries so hard but never really totally grasps a concept.

Becoming an effective teacher is not a solitary enterprise. As a student of teaching, seek mentors and take advantages of the opportunities that they offer you. As a mature teacher, do not be selfish, but rather seek and offer opportunities to the teachers of the future. Through both your classroom teaching and mentoring of colleagues, strive to be a role model and facilitator of excellent teaching.

You may wish that every student would share your enthusiasm about psychology and that every faculty member would share your enthusiasm and commitment to teaching. Alas, it is not to be. You must accept the fact that there will be students who find every aspect of psychology boring and colleagues who have no desire to be creative in the classroom. However, do not ever let it stop you from trying to stimulate enthusiasm about teaching and learning with your students and colleagues.

Early in my career I had the fantasy that I would achieve a steady state of competence, maybe even excellence in teaching. Boy, was I ever wrong. For example, I did not anticipate that content areas in which I was trained would disappear (who remembers verbal learning?). Nor did I anticipate desktop computers, PowerPoint, the Internet, or developing policies to prevent cheating with cell phones. Change will be the norm, and you should be prepared to embrace it.

Always try new approaches to teaching. It can be easy to fall into a rut, repeating those approaches that have been successful. Challenge yourself and take risks. Sometimes you will fail, maybe miserably, but you will also succeed. Technology has been one driving force for changes in my teaching and I expect it will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

Teaching about teaching is not done enough. All too often we fail to share our teaching successes and failures. Avoid letting teaching become too much of a private relationship between you and the students in a class, often shared only with an administrator reviewing your performance through student evaluations. You should make presenting and talking about teaching to other teachers a central part of your teaching life. I encourage you to attend and present at teaching conferences or make opportunities to talk about teaching through attending campus workshops or encouraging departmental conversations on teaching. All of these can provide needed renewal, feedback, and development of new ideas essential for keeping you teaching fresh.

Go to graduation ceremonies. Watching your students receive their diploma, congratulating them afterwards, and meeting their families provides an opportunity to join them in celebrating their accomplishment. It also provides you with the chance the give them a send off for the next stage of their professional journey.

Final Thoughts

I think the friendships and experiences around teaching with students and colleagues are the best part of an academic life, or for that matter, any line of work. The personal satisfaction of helping a student achieve his or her goals or a teacher becoming more effective are deeper than any other career accomplishment. Most of our publications will probably fade into history, but our potential impact on students through our teaching can last through generations.

References

Halonen, J, Appleby, D. C., Brewer, C. L., Buskist, W., Gillem, A. R., Halpern, D., et al. (2003). Assessment CyberGuide for learning goals and outcomes in the undergraduate psychology major. Retrieved May 17, 2005, from the Web site: http://www.apa.org/ed/guidehomepage.html

Hill, G. W. (1992). Integrating cross cultural topics into introductory psychology. In R. A. Smith (Ed.), Instructor's manual for W. Weiten's Psychology: Themes and variations. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Hill, G. W. (1998). Activities and videos for teaching cross cultural issues in psychology. Teaching and Advising Resource published by the Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology, Society for the Teaching of Psychology (APA Division 2). Retrieved May 17, 2005 from the Web site: http://www.lemoyne.edu/OTRP/

Hill, G. W. (2002). Incorporating cross cultural perspectives: Challenges and strategies. In S. F. Davis & W. Buskist (Eds.), The teaching of psychology: Essays in honor of Wilbert J. McKeachie and Charles L. Brewer, pp. 431 443. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Hill, G. W. (2004). Instructor's manual with test bank for Matsumoto and Juang's Culture and psychology (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Noble, L. M., & Hill, G. W. (1990, August). Computers in experimental psychology: What works? In M. McCall (Chair), Computer exposition workshop: Computers in statistics and research design classes. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.

This page was first posted online on November 8, 2005 and was last updated on November 8, 2005

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