Studies in Higher Education

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How professors develop as teachers

Peter Kugel

To cite this article: Peter Kugel (1993) How professors develop as teachers, Studies in Higher
Education, 18:3, 315-328, DOI: 10.1080/03075079312331382241

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Studies in Higher Education Volume 18, No. 3, 1993 315

H o w Professors Develop as
Teachers
PETER KUGEL
Boston College, USA

ABSTRACT Like the learning abilities of their students, the teaching abilities of college professors
seem to develop in stages. In this paper I want to offer an account of how this development sometimes,
and perhaps often, proceeds. Typically, when they begin their teaching careers, professors focus their
concern primarily on their own role in the classroom (stage I: self). When they have mastered this
role, at least to their own satisfaction, the focus of their concern shifts, first to their understanding of
the subject matter they teach (stage 2: subject) and then to their students" ability to absorb what they
have been taught (stage 3: student). With this last shift comes a more general shift of focus from
teaching to learning, that begins, in stage 3, with a focus on helping their students become more
absorbent (stage 3: student as receptive). Concern then typically shifts to helping students learn to use
what they have been taught (stage 4: student as active) and then to helping them to learn on their
own (stage 5: student as independent). M y account of this development is based on the informal
observation of a few cases and it suggests a framework for thinking about the development of
professors as teachers. With further work, it might lead to theories that will describe what does happen
and predict what will happen.

Introduction
T h e teaching abilities of college professors, like the learning abilities of their students (Perry,
1970), seem to develop in stages. T o say that something develops in stages is to say that it
grows in two different ways. Sometimes it grows 'more of the same', as a tadpole does when
it grows into a bigger tadpole. At other times, it grows into 'something different', as a tadpole
does when it grows into a frog. In this paper, I want to offer an account of how the stages
in the development of college professors as teachers sometimes, and perhaps often, unfold.
Its five stages and two phases are shown in Fig. 1.
M y account is based on informal observations. I have looked at m y own career and the
careers of colleagues. I have talked with college professors, with college students and with
people who work with both. I do not believe that my account describes the only way that the
development of college professors proceeds, but I believe that it describes a c o m m o n way.
Several people who have read this paper have said something like 'Yes, that is how it was for
me'. I am also quite sure that there are some professors whose development it describes
badly, if at all. Most cases will probably fall between these two extremes, resembling m y
account in some respects and differing from it in others.

Dynamics
An account o f h o w professors develop in stages should do two things. It should give an
account of what happens within each stage, and it should give an account of what happens
between stages. What happens within a stage, in m y account, is that college professors focus
316 P. Kugel
PHASE II
EMPHASIS ON LEARNING

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T :!!iSiaael ;2ii ;F~:easll 0:~i s 0 # i e e t ;

,,::m ,, :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

PHASE !
I I

EMPHASIS ON TEACHING
FIG. 1. An overview of my account.

their p r i m a r y concern on one aspect o f teaching. This focus provides t h e m with a conceptual
framework that determines how they think a b o u t their teaching and what they p a y attention
to, or 'see'. Like Perry's (1970) developing college students~ developing college professors are
often unaware o f the assumptions o f the stage they are in, or even that they are making
assumptions at all. W h e n they move from one stage to another, it is as t h o u g h they p u t on
a n e w pair o f spectacles a n d see things differently. But they seldom took at the spectacles
t h e m s e l v e s - - a t their assumptions.
One might w o n d e r why professors do n o t try to deal with all the aspects o f their teaching
at once. It seems to be quite natural, perhaps because it is quite efficient, to work on one
aspect at a time. T h e m i n d seems to be a bit like a searchlight which illuminates one sector
of (say) a prison wall at a time. A l t h o u g h one could make the light m o r e diffuse, and thus
illuminate the entire wall surrounding the prison at once, doing this would illuminate each
part badly. As focusing a p r i s o n searchlight on one part o f the wall at a time makes it easier
to spot escaping prisoners, so focusing o n e ' s professorial concern on one aspect o f o n e ' s
teaching at a time seems to m a k e it easier to deal with.
A n d , just as there is a natural way to illuminate consecutive segments o f the prison walt
with a searchlight (by rotating it), so there seems to be a natural way to go through the stages
o f professorial development. Typically, professors seem to shift their focus to the concerns of
another stage when the urgency of the concerns o f the stage they are in has diminished
because those concerns have b e e n largely dealt with. As a result, concerns a b o u t another
aspect o f teaching then seem m o r e important. Usually~ there seems to be a natural next stage,
b u t its naturalness does n o t m a k e that 'nextness' obligatory. Just as one n e e d n o t illuminate
the sectors o f a prison wall in a certain order, so professors n e e d n o t go through the stages
o f their d e v e l o p m e n t in any particular order. I n this respect, professorial d e v e l o p m e n t seems
to differ from m o s t biological development. A frog m u s t go from egg to tadpole to frog. T h e
order is fixed. T h a t does n o t seem to be the case with professors.
T h e r e is another difference. In biological development, later is generally better. T h e
capabilities of a frog seem, somehow, better (or at least fuller) than those o f a tadpole. T h e
capabilities o f an adult h u m a n seem, somehow, better (or at least fuller) t h a n those o f a child.
T h a t is because the capabilities developed later b u i l d on those developed earlier a n d
incorporate them. T h a t is n o t always the case in the d e v e l o p m e n t o f professors.
M y account is a story of h o w a typical professor might develop as a teacher. As such, it
suggests a framework for thinking a b o u t this d e v e l o p m e n t and this framework might b e
 How Professors Develop as Teachers 317

helpful to those (students, administrators and colleagues) who deal with college professors as
teachers, as well as to those college professors who wish to reflect on their own development.
With further development, it might be turned into a scientific theory that could predict how
college professors will develop and even into an account that could suggest how college
professors should develop.
Mine is not the first stage-based account of professorial development and I hope that it
will not be the last. Altemative accounts have been offered by Fox (1983), Sherman et al.
(1987), Grow (1991), Boice (1991) and undoubtedly others. Sprinthall & Thies-SprinthaU
(1983) have given a more general account of teacher development.

Stage 1: self
Most college professors begin their teaching careers as teaching assistants while they are still
in graduate school. When they first step up to the front of a classroom as its teacher, most
of them share a common feeling--abject terror. The question uppermost in their minds is
'Will I survive?' That is not surprising. Beginners in many fields--from dancing to dentistry--
fear that they will make fools of themselves when they first perform in public. But the
problem is often worse for novice professors because they have seldom been taught much
about the skill they are about to perform. They have been taught a lot about the subject they
are about to teach, but little about how to teach it. Most of what they have learned, they have
learned from watching others and, as they start to do it on their own, they usually wish they
had paid more attention to what their professors did as they taught.
As they stand in front of their own class for the first time, they feel out of place. It seems
like only yesterday that they were students (and often it was). Today, they stand where their
professors stood, and they feel a bit like frauds. They worry that they will be found out. When
students address them as 'professor', they look back over their shoulders to see who the
student is talking to. When a hand goes up in the back of the room, they feel a jolt of
adrenaline. They are afraid that they won't be able to answer the question about to be asked.
While they were students, they could hide. Now that they are professors, they cannot. They
feel vulnerable. They are surprised at how much more they have to know about a subject to
teach it than they had to know to understand somebody else teaching it. They are afraid that
they will run out of things to say, or that they will say something foolish.
Although they seldom realize it, their concerns are much like those of their students.
Their students also think mainly about themselves and worry about making mistakes. Like
their students, professors at this stage tend to assume that their effectiveness depends wholly
on what they do, and that it can only be evaluated by others. When they were students, those
others were their professors. Now that they are the professors, the only 'others' in the
classroom are the students, whose evaluations many of them now take to be the only true
measure of their worth. At this stage, most college teachers tend to see their students as
applause meters whose readings indicate, presumably correctly, how well they are teaching.
Their concerns are not without justification. Beginning professors often talk too fast or
speak unclearly. They cover too much material or too little. They often do not understand
the material well. They can be unclear and disorganized. Beginning teachers have a lot to
learn about designing courses, writing syllabi, preparing for classes and running them. They
have to learn how to develop good assignments and examinations. They have to learn how
to grade and how to manage discussions.
Student reactions can make them aware of what isn't working well. Reflection and
conversations with colleagues can suggest things to work on. There are many different skills
to master. They master some better than others. But eventually, most professors develop a
318 P. Kugel

version of their role that suits them and they begin to feel like 'real' college professors. One
day, when a student addresses them as "professor', they turn and, without a second thought,
answer 'Yes?'

The First T r a n s i t i o n : self to subject

As many of their doubts about their own legitimacy begin to fade, the few that remain seem
to grow in importance. After professors have developed good ways to present their material,
they may continue to worry" about their mastery of the material they are presenting. Do they
know enough? Have they read enough? Are they covering the central ideas? Do they really
understand this material? As other worries fade, these worries take on a greater prominence
and, as a result, many professors shift the central focus of their concern from how they are
teaching to what they are teaching--from self to subject.
A few do not shift. They continue to polish their teaching skills. Some of these develop
them so well that they join the ranks of the campus's most popular teachers. Their students
enjoy their classes although a few may wonder how much they are really learning. But most
professors, having developed their ability to present the material to their own satisfaction,
turn the central focus of their concern from their teaching to their subject--from 'me' to 'it'.
Their colleagues may notice that they are spending more time in the library.

Stage 2: subject
In the second, or subject, stage, of their development, professors learn much more about their
subjects than they ever did as students. They begin to realize how deep and rich it really is.
Their lectures become crisper, sharper, and more powerful. And they think of themselves as
passing on to their students, their own knowledge, skills and understanding. That makes
sense to them. Why make the students figure out what their professors have already figured
out for them? Professors at this stage think of the courses they teach much as cooks think
about the courses they serve. They lay out the information as attractively and enticingly as
they can, hoping that their students will enjoy it and digest it.
Now there is so much to cover that professors who, not long ago, worried about running
out of things to say, now worry about running out of the time to say it in. The term is too
short to 'cover' the material and the last few weeks of each term are usually spent racing
through everything that hasn't been covered yet. For now, teaching is telling and learning is
listening.
The subject-intoxicated professor of this second stage sees things differently from the
self-intoxicated professor of the first. Now when a hand goes up in the class, it may be seen
as an expression of interest, or even excitement, that will allow the professor to probe the
material more deeply. Although professors at this stage continue to care how students feel
about the subject, they no longer feel that students are the best judges of their teaching. That
can now best be judged by somebody who knows the subject well, which the students do not.
Only professional colleagues can really teU how good a course is and, of course, they are not
taking it. So professors, at this stage, often seem to be teaching to an invisible audience of
their peers. That is not all bad. There is important work to be done at this stage, just as there
was in the first. Good teaching depends on good understanding of what one is teaching. And
learning to understand a subject reaUy well takes time and effort. That's the good news.
But there is also bad news. As professors increase the quantity and the quality of what
they teach, the quantity and quality of what the students learn seems to decrease. Professors
often attribute this problem to the shortcomings of their students. Perhaps their students are
 How Professors Develop as Teachers 319

not working hard enough. Perhaps they are not motivated well enough, or prepared welt
enough. Perhaps they watch too much television or drink too much beer. During lunch at the
faculty club, professors talk about their students' laziness, stupidity, or lack of preparation.
Often they laugh at the silly mistakes their students make. They wonder why their students
don't learn what they so excellently teach. 'I taught it', they say to themselves. 'But they
didn't leam it.' (They seldom stop to wonder what that could possibly mean.)
If they looked at their teaching from their students' point of view, they might be able to
see what was going wrong. As they pack more and more into their lectures, their students sit
there, trying to write it all down. They have little time to think about what they are writing
and make it their own. As they write, they think, 'The professor knows all this, and I don't.
I'd better get it all down now because I could never figure this all out for myself'. Leaming
to figure it out is made more difficult by the fact that professors, at this stage, do all their
thinking outside of class (so that it will not waste class time). The students never get to see
how the thinking is done. As their professors do more and more of it for them, the students
become less and less able to do it for themselves. And the professors wonder 'Why aren't my
students thinking?'
What is happening here can happen at any stage. If professors focus too narrowly on the
concerns of a single stage, they can shortchange the concerns of others. They are like
searchlights looking for escapees in a prison that focus on one part of the wall while the
prisoners are escaping over another. And some are so entranced by those concerns that they
stay focused on them for the rest of their lives. But just as professors who get stuck in the first
stage can enrich the campus, so can those who get stuck in the second. Their erudition
inspires students. Their expertise is often sought by their colleagues and by the outside world.
They may appear on the evening news. They are consulted by industry and government. And
some of them also join the group of 'best teachers' on the campus. Learning more about their
subject can be fun. The basic question they ask themselves at this stage is 'Is it clear to me?'
And, after a certain amount of hard work, they are able to answer, with some degree of
confidence, 'Yes'.

The S e c o n d Transition: subject to student

This stage has its surprises and some of them play a role that is very like the role that
anomalies play in Kuhn's (1962) account of scientific revolutions. They overthrow their
current ideal--that of the subject matter expert disbursing his or her expertise to willing ears.
Among such surprises are these:

• The professor finishes a lecture. It was exciting. The students seem interested. A hand
goes up in the back of the room. 'Will this be on the exam?' the student asks.
• After another superb lecture, two students are talking excitedly as they leave the room.
The professor gets closer to hear what they are saying about the lecture. They are
talking about last night's party.
* The professor is grading examinations. There are many errors. The understanding that
does show through seems shallow.
• The professor is teaching a course that depends on a prerequisite course. As usual, the
students seem to be ill-prepared. They seem not to have leamed what they should have
been taught in that course. It must be the fault of the professor who taught it. But then
our developing professor remembers that he or she was the person who taught it last
year.

Why, the professors at this stage may wonder, aren't the students interested? Why aren't they
320 P. Kugel

getting it? 'It's clear to me', thinks the professor. 'So how come it's not clear to them?' 'It's
interesting to me. So how come it's not interesting to them?' The material is good. The
transmission is good. Could something be wrong at the receiving end? Perhaps. And so, after
a while, professors at this stage may begin to shift the focus of their concern to those who,
for some reason, are not receiving the material they are sending--their students. Our
professors have gone from thinking about 'me', to thinking about 'it', to thinking about
'them'.

Stage 3: student
As their attention shifts to their students, they begin to notice that they are not an
undifferentiated mass of identical people. They begin to see that they are individuals with
different interests and abilities. And they begin to realize that those differences will have to
be dealt with if the material is to get across.
Often professors begin to deal with them by using a buckshot approach. Since abilities,
learning styles and interests are spread out, the professors spread out their teaching. If some
students learn better by being told, others by being shown and still others by doing, then they
give all their students a bit of telling, a bit of showing and a bit of doing. They give simple
examples and complex ones. They give hard problems and easy ones. They explain theory
and practice. They tell stories, give definitions and show pictures. Because they are spreading
out their 'shots', it takes them longer to cover the material. But, as seen from the viewpoint
of this stage, it's worth it. You may be teaching less, but your students are learning more,
remembering it longer and understanding it better.
The buckshot approach can be improved by looking around at where your students are,
intellectually and emotionally, and aiming your 'shots' in their direction. Professors can find
out where their students are by asking more questions and paying more attention to the
questions students ask. Now, when a hand goes up in the back of the room, it may be seen
as an opportunity to find out how the students are doing, what they are thinking, and where
their difficulties lie. At this stage, the main question that our professors ask themselves has
shifted from 'What am I saying?' to 'What are they hearing?' And they experiment with
different ways to find out:
* Some come to class early or stay late to talk with their students individually.
* Some use a question box--a box placed in the back of the room into which students
can drop questions that they did not ask during class.
* Some use 'minute papers'--informal 1 minute papers that students write at the end of
class, answering such questions as 'What was the most interesting, or important, thing
you learned in class today?' and 'What are you still confused about, or would you like
to learn more about?' (Wilson, 1986). Minute papers, like questions for the question
box, usually are not signed or graded.
* Some give short quizzes that allow students to test their learning after each class
(Kugel, 1989). Since these quizzes are for the benefit of the student alone, they are
usually not graded either.
* Some read their students' examinations more carefully to identify student difficulties
so that they can address those difficulties in class or present the material more
effectively the next time.
* And some spend more time looking around the class. When they see their students'
eyes begin to glaze over, they try to do something about it.
(For a different, but much more extensive and detailed account of techniques for gauging
 How Professors Develop as Teachers 321

student understanding and attitudes, see Cross & Angelo [1988]. For what research says
about the effectiveness of these ideas, see McKeachie, et at. [1986].
It is interesting how, when they were thinking about 'me' and 'it', our developing
professors seldom noticed how bored 'they', their students, could get. The stages professors
are in do a lot to determine what they see. Now that they can see their students' frequent lack
of interest, they not only look for it, but they try to do something about it when they see it.
Tailoring your teaching to your students is not easy. Students differ from each other, and
from their teacher. Classes differ from each other, and a single class will differ, not only from
day to day, but from the beginning of the hour to the end. Professors have to learn how to
discover, and kindle, student interests. They have to learn how to nurture them and how to
probe and correct student misunderstandings. When professors at this stage meet at the
faculty club, they still discuss student errors. But now they are more likely to talk about their
causes and cures. And they are more likely to smile than to laugh.

T h e P h a s e T r a n s i t i o n : f o c u s o n t e a c h i n g to f o c u s o n l e a r n i n g

We can think of our first three stages (self, subject, student) as comprising a single phase in
which professors work on different aspects of teaching, or presenting the material. They may
work on these aspects in the order we have described or in a different one. They may work
on each aspect only once, or they may switch back and forth between them. After a while,
however, they usually master the role of the teacher in the classroom, at least to their own
satisfaction. Now they no longer have to think much about how to do it and they can pay
more attention to what they are doing it for--their students' learning.
Again, this is something that happens in the development of many professionals.
Consider, for example, pianists. Beginning pianists typically worry about hitting the right
notes at the right time in the right way--the techniques of piano playing. When they have
developed fluency in these techniques, they can think more about the effect that their playing
is having on their listeners. Much the same thing can now happen to professors. With better
control over the skills of teaching, they can now focus more attention on its purpose.

T h e T h i r d T r a n s i t i o n : s t u d e n t as r e c e p t i v e to s t u d e n t as a c t i v e

When professors were thinking about the work they had to do to teach, they tended to ignore
the work their students had to do to learn. If they thought about their students at all, they
often thought of them as primarily passive receivers of what was being taught. If it was not
learned, it was up to the teacher to do something about it. If students did not understand one
form of presentation, the professors tried another. If the students did not remember
something, the professors repeated it. If students did not learn, professors would simply teach
harder. Professors were seen as active and students as passive. It was as though the professors
thought of themselves as buckets full of knowledge whose job it was to fill their students'
minds, which they thought of as being like pails that were waiting to be filled.
This way of looking at education has some merit and many things can, perhaps, be
taught by somehow pouring things into students' minds. But some things cannot. Students
into whose minds information is poured can often regurgitate what was poured in, especially
if their grade depends on it. They remember the facts (but not for long). But they don't see
the connections. They can answer the questions on tests if they resemble what they were told
in the lectures well enough, but not if they deviate from them in any significant way. What
is learned seems narrow and limited. Often it seems as though the facts are there but the
connections are not.
322 P. Kugel

At first, this can be discouraging. After a while, it may become a challenge. If connec-
tions and understandings cannot be constructed by their professors, perhaps they can be
constructed by the students. Perhaps teaching is more like coaching. Perhaps the students'
minds are less like pails to be filled than like muscles to be strengthened by exercise. Perhaps
learning is something students do rather than something that is done to them.

S t a g e 4: s t u d e n t as a c t i v e

Noticing the importance of what the students do to their learning can change the professors'
view of their teaching. Many stop feeling that they have to do all the work--that they have
to carry the whole educational process on their own shoulders--and they turn more of the
work over to their students. Finkel & Monk (1983) refer to this as the "dissolution of the
Atlas complex".
Even in traditional lectures, much of what students learn is the result of what they do as
they listen, whether they do it in their heads or in their notebooks. The ones who learn best
do it by thinking along with their teachers. Some try to figure out what questions the teacher
is trying to answer rather than just writing down the answers themselves. Some try to organize
what they are writing down conceptually and try to fit it in to what they already know. Some
try to think up questions to ask. Some learn by taking part in discussions, by the writing they
do in their homework assignments and in examinations. Professors at this stage encourage
such activities, believing that they develop their students' minds. Learning is increasingly seen
as something that students do because it has to take place in their own minds--where their
professors cannot directly reach. Professors help the process but they do not do it all. (One
might wonder why they ever thought they could.)
As the focus shifts from teaching to learning, old tools take on new uses. The minute
papers that used to be used to find out how things were going, are now assigned to engage
the students' minds in reflecting on what happened during class. Discussions, that used to be
used to find out whether students were prepared, are now seen as a way to get students to
use what they are learning.
As professors begin to see themselves as more like coaches than like experts, things
change in subtle ways. There is an interesting difference between the way that coaches and
experts see what they do. Coaches tend to be happier when they do less and their players do
more. If they want to develop their players' leg muscles, they do not run for them. They let
them do the running. In contrast, experts typically do things for you. Physicians seldom ask
their patients to diagnose themselves. They make a diagnosis and tell their patients what they
have decided. College teachers serve as both experts and teachers. They do some things for
their students, and they let them do some things for themselves. Having developed the
expert's skills needed to do things for their students, professors are now in a position to
develop their coaching skills--their ability to help students do things for themselves.
What students learn only by being told often becomes what Whitehead (1929) called
"inert knowledge", accessible only when triggered by situations that are very close to those
in which it was learned and, thus, virtually useless in real life. In contrast, students who use
what they have learned, whether in writing term papers, writing essays, solving problems,
participating in discussions or in some other way, learn to use what they have learned. The
knowledge they acquire tends to be more 'active', and better integrated with their other
knowledge and skills; in short, more useful and usually more memorable.
There are many ways to let the students do more and professors, at this stage of their
development, typically experiment with several until they find those that best suit them, their
students and their subjects. Some continue to lecture, but they ask more questions, pause
 How Professors Develop as Teachers 323

more often, give more challenging homework, ask for minute papers, or help their students
'think along' with a lecture.
Others do less talking and allow more time for discussion. Discussion, whether it
imitates the Socratic model or not, has a serious drawback. Only one person can be talking
at a time. T h e others in the class are still only listening, and often they are listening to
somebody who may not be worth listening to. This limitation--based on the fact that in a
class discussion, only one person can talk at a t i m e - - m i g h t be called the Socratic bottleneck.
There are several ways it can be broken. One is to let the students write. Writing engages the
mind almost as m u c h as talking. Like talking, writing produces a product that others can
evaluate and all the members of a class can profitably write at the same time. Techniques that
use writing to get more students active in the classroom have been developed by the writing
across the curriculum movement. You do not have to limit what students do to writing to break
the Socratic bottleneck. You can divide the class into small groups and let the members o f
the groups talk to each other. If you have 10 small groups, then 10 people can be talking at
once. Ideas for dividing classes into groups have been developed by the co-operative learning
movement.
These methods, and others, try to increase student 'doing' and, in many parts of the
curriculum learning by doing has become standard fare. Students used to learn to speak
French by being told h o w to do it--often in English. Today, students are m u c h more likely
to learn to speak French by speaking French. T h a t is, after all, how French children learn to
do it and they manage to learn it rather well. It is also how Aristotle (in his Politics) said we
learn to do things--by doing them.
Getting your students to do things in class--rather than just doing things to them--is not
always easy. You have to pay careful attention to what you, the professor, do not do.
Professors who want their students to do more in class have to practice holding back and to
realize that sometimes, in education as in architecture, 'less is more'. But they also have to
realize that, as Christensen, et al. (1991) suggest, 'less' is not nothing. Professors who want
to get their students actively involved in their own learning d o n ' t just hold back. T h e y have
to work actively as facilitators of their students' learning, doing some telling, some showing,
some asking and some encouraging. T h e y have to raise good questions and guide student
activity into productive directions. A n d they have to listen. As Leonard (1991) observes, good
listening is not easy and there is more to it than just not talking.
As the professors' views of how to teach change, their views of what to teach may also
change. T h e y may decide that it is more important that students learn how to think than that
they learn what to think. T h e y may worry less about coverage and more about 'uncoverage'.
T h e y may respond to student questions with other questions, hoping to encourage their
students to figure the answers out for themselves.
This sort of behavior can annoy those students who are convinced that learning is
listening. T h e y worry that their notebooks are not filling up and that, therefore, they are not
learning very much. W h e n they debate a question, some wonder why the professor doesn't
save time and iust give them the right answer. Students who persist in these concerns may
discourage this kind of 'teaching', and the discrepancies between how teachers at this stage
think about learning on the one hand, and how their students think about it on the other, can
lead to curious misunderstandings. (See, for example, Perry [1981] and Grow [1991].
Students who are used to having their professors do it all for them, will need help as they are
asked to take over more of the work for themselves. If they d o n ' t get such help, they may stop
paying attention or become disruptive.
H o w far professors can go in making their students more active (as in our stage 4) and
more independent (as in our stage 5) will depends not only on them, but also on the subjects
324 P. Kugel

they teach and on their students. College professors do not develop alone. They develop
along with their students and they cannot go too far beyond them.

T h e F o u r t h Transition: s t u d e n t as a c t i v e to s t u d e n t as i n d e p e n d e n t

At first glance, it may seem as though letting students take a more active role in their own
learning should decrease the amount of work their professors have to do. Alas, the professors
soon find out that it often does not. True, they can lecture less. But if they let their students
carry on separate subgroup discussions in class, they may feel that they have to run around
the room monitoring those discussions to keep them on track. If they ask their students to
write more papers, or solve more problems, they may feel that they have to grade the
additional work. That can take enormous amounts of time. This isn't what they thought was
meant by 'Less is more'.
So professors at this stage seem to face a choice. Either they stop monitoring and grading
all this work their students are doing, or they stop making them do all this work. Most of
them take the first alternative and stop grading everything. Either they let things go ungraded,
leaving it up to their students to grade themselves, or they let the students grade each other.
Some may let their students teach each other. McKeachie (McKeachie et al., 1986) writes:
"The best answer to the question, 'What is the best method of teaching?' is that it depends
on the goal, the student, the content and the teacher. But the next best answer is 'Students
teaching students' ".
And so, what may have begun as a way of getting the work done more easily, ends up
as a way of getting a different kind of work done. As students learn to teach others, and to
assess the work of others, they also learn to teach themselves and to assess their own work.
As students take greater control of their own learning, they notice something that their
professors noticed when they first started teaching. You have to understand something better
to teach it to somebody else than when somebody else teaches it to you.

S t a g e 5: s t u d e n t as i n d e p e n d e n t
Turning students into independent learners--letting them learn how to learn on their
own--can be extremely difficult (Candy, 1990). Like many educational endeavors, it can fail.
It can fail because the students run into difficulties they cannot handle. For example, it may
call for more courage than they have because it involves risk. Some students won't try. But
some will, and some of those who try will succeed. One who apparently succeeded was John
Updike, the American writer, who, writing about his own college education, said: "I had a lot
to learn when I came to Harvard, which was fortunate since Harvard had a lot to teach ....
[After 4 years] I still had a lot to learn, but I had been given the liberating notion that I could
teach myself" (Updike, 1985).
Turning students into independent learners may call for more patience and sensitivity
than some professors have. It may call for a broader understanding of the material than some
can develop. If students are allowed to control what they learn, they can try to visit corners
of a discipline that their professors have not yet visited. While they were lecturing, they could
keep their students out of those corners. Now they cannot. Professors who want to give the
impression that they know all their subject well, should stick to lecturing.
In spite of these difficulties, some professors seem to become remarkably good at
developing independent learners. Thus Moise (1965) attributes the success of R.L. Moore,
who students became better research mathematicians than those from more prestigious
institutions (Jones, 1977), to the fact that he seldom lectured. Moise claims that he heard
 How Professors Develop as Teachers 325

Moore lecture for less than 2 hours during the three and a half years that Moise was his
student.
The idea that students should leam how to learn solves an important problem for those
college professors who worry about what they should teach. If the purpose of a college
education is to teach a student all about a given subject, professors wonder about, and argue
about, what parts of (say) biology they should teach. They cannot teach it all and even if they
could, the students would soon forget most of it. If they could remember all of it, biology
would change over time and what they remembered would no longer be particularly useful.
And even if the students remembered everything and the field did not change, they might end
up selling toiletries--to which knowledge of biology might not contribute a great deal. If they
learn how to learn, they can learn new things and different things that they may need in their
lives. T h a t does not mean that students should only learn how to learn. What they learn still
matters, but it is not the only thing that matters and, from the viewpoint of this stage, it may
not even be what matters most.
There is something poignant about this stage of our college professors' development.
They began their teaching careers convinced that everything depended on their ability to
prepare and present material. Now, here they are some years later, trying to help their
students learn the material without their help. They may feel a bit like parents watching their
children become more and more independent of them. But in one way they are different.
They get new 'children' every fall.

Summary

There are two stages that we might add to my account--a pre-developmental stage (stage O:
preparation) and a post-developmental one (stage 6: tuning). The pre-developmental stage
(Fig. 2) begins in graduate school, when our professors-to-be are still students and the
students they teach have not yet entered the picture. Only the professor-to-be (self) and the
subject are on the scene. In this stage, the nascent professors develop their understanding of
their discipline in two ways--through their class work, in which they are (typically) told about
it, and through their research, in which they try to work within it.
The next stage (stage 1: self) begins when the professors' students enter the picture (Fig.
3). Their presence forces the professors to focus on how they will pass the knowledge that
the3, have acquired to their students. Once professors have developed their ability to do this
well enough to satisfy themselves, they discover that their previously acquired knowledge of
the discipline requires revision and augmentation, which leads them to learn more about their
subject (stage 2 in Fig. 3). Professors enter stage 3 (of Fig. 3) when they realize that what they
are trying to convey is not always getting through.
As they realize that, in some sense, what students learn depends on the learner as well
as it depends on the teacher, professors begin to try to develop their students' ability to use
the ideas of the discipline (stage 4 in Fig. 4) and to learn those ideas on their own (stage 5).
Since the professors do not really enter directly into the relationships of these two stages--

CLASSW EARCH

FIG. 2. Stage 0: preparation.

 326 P. Kugel

Stage

Stage 3ge 3

FIG. 3. Phase I: focus on teaching.

Stage 5 Stage 4

FIG. 4. Phase II: focus on learning.

FIG. 5. Stage 6: tuning.

between their students and the subject (as Fig. 4 suggests) they serve m o r e as coaches when
they deal with the concerns o f these two stages.
Once professors have developed some level of c o m p e t e n c e in dealing with the relation-
ships between the three m a i n elements o f the classroom (self, subject a n d student), their n e e d
to deal with any one of t h e m loses some of its urgency. Professors are now freer to choose
the aspect o f their teaching they wish to focus on. T o r e t u r n to the analogy of the searchlight
scanning the prison walls, it is as though their searchlight h a d d o n e one t o u r a r o u n d the walls
and could n o w be used to focus selectively on areas in which suspicious noises could be
heard. A t this point, professors enter what we might think o f as stage 6: tuning (See Fig. 5).
T h e i r focus can n o w be shifted as needed. T h e y can now revisit the concerns of each stage
and ' t u n e ' each aspect o f their teaching as the n e e d arises. T h e y can tune several aspects o f
their teaching so that they work together in better harmony. And, when they teach a new
subject, they m a y revisit all the stages in the original order.
Is this stage s o m e h o w better because it includes all the others? Perhaps. But just as a
garden has r o o m for plants that are grown for their roots (such as potatoes), plants that are
grown for their leaves (such as lettuce) and still others that are grown for their fruits (such
as tomatoes), so the university has r o o m for people who excel in aspects o f their teaching, as
well as those who are fairly good at t h e m all.
 How Professors Develop as Teachers 327

So What?

W h a t is one to m a k e o f this account? As I suggested at the beginning o f this paper, it can be

looked at in several ways. It can be looked at as a story a b o u t h o w professors might develop
that suggests a framework for thinking a b o u t this development. Such stories are n o t generally
true or false. T h e y are useful or useless. T h e y are useful if people find the frameworks they
suggest to be useful a n d useless ff people do not.
It can also be looked at as the basis for a scientific theory that describes h o w professors
do develop and makes predictions a b o u t h o w professors will develop. U s e d as such a theory,
it can be true or false. T o find out which it is, we would first have to define its concepts m o r e
precisely. Having done that, we could try to develop instruments to determine what stage a
professor is in and use those instruments to determine whether professors really do fall into
stages, whether those stages really do follow the order I have suggested and so forth. If this
account turns out to be accurate, that will n o t mean, of course, that every professor will, or
should, develop the way it says. T o say that a theory a b o u t college professors is accurate is
to say that it applies to some degree to some percentage of the p o p u l a t i o n o f college
professors. A l m o s t certainly we will find that it applies to some populations better than
others. Differences m a y arise due to the characteristics of the individual professors (national-
ity, gender and the like), the characteristics o f the institution (graduate, u n d e r g r a d u a t e ,
public, private a n d the like) a n d possibly the characteristics o f the administrations and the
students.
John Boehrer, o f the K e n n e d y School o f G o v e r n m e n t at H a r v a r d University, a n d I have
done one informal ' e x p e r i m e n t ' that suggests that at least part o f this m o d e l m a y fit the
d e v e l o p m e n t o f a reasonable percentage of college professors. Before we p r e s e n t e d parts o f
the account o f this p a p e r to a seminar at the Carroll School o f M a n a g e m e n t at Boston
College, we described what we m e a n t by a 'stage', and then asked the participating
professors to write an account o f the stages they thought they had gone through in their
own d e v e l o p m e n t as teachers. M o s t of the accounts they gave m a t c h e d the account I have
given here, at least through the first three stages. As evidence, this is only suggestive. It
suggests, b u t does not really prove, that m a n y college professors develop in the way I have
described.
T h e r e is a third way this account might be u s e d - - a s a m o d e l for how college professors
should develop. D e v e l o p m e n t a l accounts are often used in this way because people infer that
w h a t comes later m u s t be better. T h a t seems to be what Perry (1970) thought when he
described the d e v e l o p m e n t of college students. But it is h a r d to see why this has to b e so.
R o t t e n t o m a t o e s develop after ripe ones, b u t that does n o t m a k e t h e m better. G r e e n t o m a t o e s
are b e t t e r for some p u r p o s e s (such as pickling) than ripe ones even t h o u g h they develop
earlier. O n e danger o f the view that later is better is that it might encourage people to h u r r y
t h r o u g h the stages so that they w o u l d get to the later stages sooner. But I believe that that
w o u l d be counter-productive. T h e w o r k that is done within a stage is i m p o r t a n t and c a n n o t
always be hurried. A tree that decides that it will not waste time growing roots, so that it can
get m o r e quickly to the job o f growing acorns, might fall over.
T h e r e is, however, one guiding principle that m y account does seem to suggest quite
strongly. Developing is better than not developing. T h e development of college professors
n e e d n o t come to an end until they do. T e a c h i n g skills, like athletic skills, can always be
improved or at least better t u n e d to the situation. While I was writing this paper, a student
asked m e what I was working on. "A p a p e r about h o w college professors develop", I replied.
" T h e y do develop?" she asked. Yes, Julie, they do. And, if they are lucky, they keep on
developing.
328 P. Kugel

Acknowledgements
I t h a n k John Boehrer for several discussions from which m a n y of the ideas in this paper
developed. I also thank T o m Angelo, Julianne Fitzgerald, Joanne G a i n e n , Howard Gardner,
Gerald Grow, Judy Kugel, Michael Schiro, the editor of this journal a n d the referees, for
helpful suggestions. T h e y should all, of course, be granted the customary absolutions.

Correspondence: Peter Kugel, C o m p u t e r Science D e p a r t m e n t , W.E. Carroll School of M a n -

agement, Boston College, C h e s t n u t Hilt, M A 02167, USA.

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