1. Teaching Tips from a Teacher
Donald J. Liu
Prepared for the American Agricultural Economics Association Organized Symposium,
“Teaching Tips from Top Teachers: 2006 AAEA Award Recipients,”
July 30, 2007, Conventional Center, Portland, Oregon.
It is the nurturing of the mind, the empowering of the young and the challenge of trying to be a
better teacher each day that makes teaching such a fulfilling and pleasurable activity. Truly, it is
the joy of teaching that drives a teacher to constantly strive for excellence.
Overcoming Limitations
No one is perfect, but we can always improve by transforming weaknesses into strength.
Engaging Students
Teaching without the active participation of the learner is like practicing democracy
without the genuine involvement of the citizen.
Building Rapport
Over the course of my teaching career, I have learned that building rapport with my
students and creating an open and respectful classroom requires both words and deeds.
Seeking out the Frontier
To explore strange new pedagogy, to seek out new teaching methods, to boldly transform
your classroom like no one has done before!
Maximizing the Theater
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. Gail Godwin (1937 - )

2. Teaching Tips from a Teacher
Donald J. Liu
Prepared for the AAEA Organized Symposium, “Teaching Tips from Top Teachers: 2006
AAEA Award Recipients,” July 30, 2007, Conventional Center, Portland, Oregon.
I would like to share with you five things that I have identified as the essential elements to good
teaching: overcoming limitations, engaging students, building rapport, seeking out the frontier,
and maximizing the theater.
Overcoming Limitations
No one is perfect, but we can always improve by transforming weaknesses into strength.
As a teacher, I have come a long way. Being a non-native speaker of English, I
immediately recognized one of my many challenges the first day I walked into my classroom
some fifteen years ago. This realization of deficiency was fortunate as it brought home the
importance of “compensation.” Ever since that day, I have been actively seeking out good
teaching strategies, methods, tools and technologies to compensate for my limitations. Through
such efforts as organizing my lecture materials in a sensible way to enhance comprehension,
embracing flexible teaching methods to accommodate different learning styles, adopting new
classroom technologies to facilitate active learning, providing easy access to students to
encourage them to seek help, establishing good rapport with students to bridge gaps and improve
communication, and conducting myself in and outside the classroom in a professional and
compassionate manner that engenders respect for all, not only have I been able to do more than
just compensate for my limitations as a teacher, I have also succeeded in drawing my students
into the learning process.
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3. Engaging Students
To engage students, teachers must transcend the traditional role of lecturing; they must also
listen to students, understand different learning styles, encourage critical thinking and challenge
each student to do his best.
I used to think that my paramount responsibility as a teacher was to expose my students
to as many important topics in the field as possible, and that as long as I conveyed the
information effectively, my students would, in turn, learn it. I used to be very reluctant to give
up precious lecture time for activities that facilitated cooperative and active learning. Over time,
however, I started to realize that teaching without the active participation of the learner is like
practicing democracy without the genuine involvement of the citizen. This insight helped me
recognize the importance of transforming my teaching methodology from a passive,
predominantly lecture-based system to one that encourages active student participation and
teamwork as an integral part of the learning process.
To bring about this transformation, I developed a new pedagogical paradigm into which a
new classroom technology and the conventional learning cycle teaching practice coalesce. Each
class session is divided into three to four learning cycles comprised of lecturing, problem
solving/cooperative learning, discussion/critiquing, and summarization. Upon the completion of
each lecture topic (every ten minutes or so) a question is posed. Using the Personal Response
System (PRS), equipped with a wireless transmitter, each student has the opportunity to enter his
answer into the computer system within a specified timeframe (usually two minutes). In figuring
out the answer, students are encouraged to pair up and work as a team. At the end of the
question session, a student is selected to articulate to the class the reason underlying his answer.
Other students may be invited to either support or refute the answer given by the first student. At
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4. times, a team may be called upon to come to the front to explicitly solve the problem and explain
the answer to the class. Before moving to the next lecture topic, I use the projection system to
show a histogram summarizing class performance, then offer final remarks. This system has
proven to be very effective in helping students stay reflective and focused, and it has encouraged
the formation and strengthening of a learning community as the semester progresses.
While the PRS technology is certainly conducive for engaging students, it is by no means
the panacea, for there are at least three other critical elements contributing to the success of this
pedagogical approach. First, it is important that the instructor create questions that are
accessible, yet challenging enough to maintain the students’ interest and encourage teamwork.
Second, it is important that the instructor be conversant with classroom dynamics and use it to
advantage, ensuring that discussions are facilitated rather than hampered. Third, it is important
that the instructor develop a good rapport with the students and create an atmosphere that
welcomes discussion. By encouraging open inquiry, the instructor is able to draw the students
into the intellectual process.
Building Rapport
Over the course of my teaching career, I have learned that building rapport with my students and
creating an open and respectful classroom require both words and deeds.
I have always made sure at the outset that my students understand that I care about them
as individuals, and that I am interested in their academic success. I want the energy I bring to the
classroom to be contagious, making my students become more enthusiastic in their learning.
Regardless of the size of my class, I have always exerted the utmost effort to know each student
as an individual, a fact they quickly notice and greatly appreciate. As part of this effort, I make it
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5. my practice to address each of my students by his first and last names by the end of the second
week of the semester. This past semester, for example, I had more than 200 students in my class
and I knew each of them.
The ability for an instructor to call on students by name establishes a personal bond
between the teacher and the students. This bond instills in them a sense of mutual respect. To
sustain this positive energy in the long haul throughout the ups and downs of the semester, it is
essential that the instructor conduct himself in and outside the classroom in a professional,
compassionate and fair manner that engenders respect for all.
Seeking out the Frontier
When I first moved to this country many years ago, I was taught by my host that: “if it ain’t
broke, don’t fix it!” While there is a lot of merit in this wisdom, when it comes to the learning of
my students, I would like to offer a friendly amendment by rephrasing it to: “if it ain’t perfect,
fix it!”
While all the outside observers had remarked on how well I had managed to engage my
students in the learning process, I knew deep inside my heart that there is always room for
improvement. For instance, I wanted to further transform my microeconomics theory class into
one in which experiential learning has a significant role. In particular, it is my vision that I can
help my students make the leap from the abstract economic models of the classroom to the
complex reality of the world if I engage them in judiciously designed classroom economics
experiments, allowing them to observe and analyze their own economic behaviors under various
market conditions.
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6. To this end, I have engaged a fellowship project with the Digital Media Center at the
University of Minnesota, with the objective of devising a new protocol of conducting classroom
economics experiments that takes advantage of the PRS technology I have already adopted for
my class. The use of PRS technology to facilitate classroom economics experiments is a novice
idea and has advantages over both the traditional labor-intensive approach of pencil-and-paper
and the capital-intensive route of relying on networked and on-line computer labs. Unlike the
pencil-and-paper approach, the PRS-facilitated procedure I devised permits real-time data
collection and immediate feedback on the economics experiment at hand. Unlike the online
route, my method allows face-to-face student interaction, providing both cognitive and affective
engagement. Finally, using the PRS to facilitate active learning of engaging students in
economics experiments makes smaller demands on capital resources than the networked
computer lab approach. Our survey results indicate that the experiments have been conducive in
helping students bridge the gaps between theory and reality.
In addition to my involvement with the Digital Media Center, I have been working over
the past three years with the staff in the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of
Minnesota as a Resource Teacher in their Early Career Teaching Enhancement Program, sharing
my experience and ideas with various groups of junior faculty interested in improving their
teaching skills. The interactions with teachers from different disciplines and with staff members
from the Center for Teaching and Learning have provided me with a wonderful opportunity to
further sharpen my own teaching skills and to broaden my stock of pedagogical knowledge as an
educator.
Seek out the frontier. Share your experience with others and learn from them. And,
boldly transform your classroom like no one has done before.
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7. Maximizing the Theater
It was pointed out by Gail Godwin that “good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-
fourths theater.”
While perhaps an overstatement, Author Godwin had it right that since life is a theater
itself, teaching should be no exception. In theater, through the employment of a variety of
dramatic techniques, an actor’s job is to attract, engage, and intrigue his audience. By regarding
his classroom as a theater and by recognizing the utility of fascination, a teacher can gradually
gain insights into how to most effectively attract, engage, and intrigue his audience – the
students.
Concluding Remarks
It is the nurturing of the mind, the empowering of the young and the challenge of trying to be a
better teacher each day that makes teaching such a fulfilling and pleasurable activity. Truly, it is
the joy of teaching that drives a teacher to constantly strive for excellence.
Yes, it is that wonderful, joyful and celebratory feeling inside you that is required of good
teaching.
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