Great teaching at U of T: tips from an expert

Sometimes it’s the uninspiring teachers who can have the greatest impact on a student - just ask Professor Ivan Silver.

The inaugural vice-president, (education) at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health encountered good teaching during his own student years. But it was the ineffective teaching that intrigued him.

"There wasn’t much attention paid to where students were starting from or how they were integrating the information with what they already knew - particularly in the health professions," says Silver. "My career in the professional development of other teachers has been largely shaped by what I perceived as a student was not very effective teaching."

A professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Silver is one of three winners of U of T’s 2011-2012 President’s Teaching Awards. He’s joined by Professor Jim Wallace, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering and Karen Reid, a senior lecturer with the department of Computer Science.

The awards recognize sustained excellence in teaching, research on teaching, and the integration of teaching and research. Winners are designated as a member of the Teaching Academy for a five-year period and receive an annual professional development allowance of $10,000 for five years.

"Dr. Silver is an internationally respected scholar in the areas of inter-professional education and collaboration, continuing education and professional development, and faculty development," says Cheryl Misak, vice-president  and provost. “He has profoundly influenced health professions education at and outside the University of Toronto as a teacher, mentor, and scholar with a passion for creating and nurturing a culture of teaching and learning.”

Silver joined the Faculty in 1981 and completed a master’s degree in education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in 1997. He has served as director of the Faculty of Medicine’s renowned Centre for Faculty Development and Vice-Dean of Continuing Education and Professional Development.

“People get too taken up with techniques of teaching and forget that the basic part is the relationship and how you convey that you care about what you’re doing and about the people you’re teaching,” Silver says. “But basically what students will remember is the idea that you care about them and you are passionate about teaching. Everything else follows from that premise, everything else is easy.”

Good teachers are “truly interested in who’s sitting in front of them and how they’re learning” and are proud of their students’ accomplishments, Silver says. But the key to great teaching is authenticity.  

“You can’t be one way with your students and another way with your colleagues and another way with your patients,” he says. “I say to people that the students are watching – and how you relate and how you connect with everybody who’s around you, is really the true informal or hidden curriculum.”

A good teacher will take risks, challenge herself and experiment with new approaches, Silver says.

“Your teaching has to have a certain edginess that relates to an uncertainty that might come from keeping your teaching fresh and trying new things,” says Silver. “When I’m teaching other teachers I encourage people to experiment with their teaching and to change for change’s sake. Even if something is working well, I guarantee it will stagnate after a while.”

Taking a workshop, being observed by other teachers, getting feedback from students – these are all ways teaching can evolve and improve, Silver says.

“Unless we’re putting ourselves on the line the same way we’re asking our students to put themselves on the line to be evaluated, I don’t think it’s authentic,” he says. “The students need to see that you are trying something new, that you do want feedback - and you’re making it transparent by using the feedback or recognizing that it didn’t go as well as you wanted and this is what you’re doing about it.”

But great teaching goes beyond conveying course content effectively.

“We need to be prepared to fail as teachers,” Silver says. “We should really expect the same things from ourselves as professors and teachers that we expect from our students.

”You’re really modelling lifelong learning for students.”