|
School of Design and Environment
Teaching Seminar at Departments of Building and Real Estate on 6 November 2007
The speaker for this semester's teaching seminar was
Professor John Glascock, Consulting Director of the
Institute of Real Estate Studies at the Department
of Real Estate, NUS and Grosvenor Professor of
Real Estate Finance at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Glascock, who has 32 years of experience
in teaching in universities, gave a presentation on
"Ten Keys to Successful Teaching".
Professor John Glascock delivering his presentation
One of the first things Professor Glascock mentioned
was that students deserve respect from their teachers.
Teachers could respect students by being fair to
students and by teaching in a way that the material
'sticks'. To ensure the latter, Professor Glascock
recommended that teachers keep their teaching simple and straightforward and not over teach. Over teaching
could hinder teachers from teaching properly and result in confused students. Another consequence of over
teaching is that it leaves teachers with little time for research. Professor Glascock peppered his talk with
various examples connected to the real world and visual aids (e.g. photographs, figures and other data) which
he used to help students understand his material and 'make it stick'.
He also stressed that it was important for teachers to update their materials often say by reading a book in
their areas of specialty at least three times a year, and visiting industry conferences to get 'the language'
as well as cases and data. Professor Glascock reminded the participants that although teachers are familiar
with the subject matter, it may take a while for students who are new to the subject to assimilate the material.
Professor Glascock's presentation was followed by a Q & A session during which staff raised issues about
approaches to adopt in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students, and in supervising students'
research.
|
