Center for Teaching & Learning Discussion Summary

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n Thursday, April 11, 2019, Dr. Marisa Parham shared her reflections on her teaching practice and the values that shape her work as an educator. Marisa spoke about teaching at a city university prior to coming to Amherst, where she was often teaching students who were the same age or older than herself. She quickly realized that she needed to find ways to establish a kind of authority in the classroom that was balanced by a sense of humility. She discussed the value that she sees in creating a democratic classroom climate. As she discussed her time teaching at Amherst, she spoke richly about the need to think about the social and environmental work that is happening in the classroom while also aligning her pedagogical methods with the research and travel aspects of her life as a faculty member. 

In terms of the social aspects of the classroom, Dr. Parham spoke of the classroom as a place where we are training students to be citizens, which is why she aspires to have the democratic process reflected in her course designs. She said, “In every class, I work to push students out of their comfort zones. I want students to feel free to grow, and also be always challenged, in a public space.” Expanding on this point, Marisa talked about the need to help students change their thinking about who they are as learners, to understand that no one knows everything. It is understandable, she said, that students enter Amherst with a sense of all-knowing, because they got into the College by demonstrating mastery of knowledge. That being said, “The purpose of being in class is not to demonstrate mastery. The purpose is to learn. And that learning is ugly, slow, and hard.”

How does she seek to challenge students to think about themselves in new ways through a democratic classroom? She creates group projects that require students to engage in processes about which they are novice, she provides multiple options for class assignments to “put difference on the table,” and she requires that students who likely would not take the lead in class to assume leadership roles. To this aim, her assignments require students to take on different roles in the projects, and to be successful in this work, students must engage in conversations about how they will proceed together. 

An additional component of Dr. Parham’s teaching approach that also relates to the cultivation of a democratic classroom to help students hone their skills of assessment. She described grading as a tool that is not equivalent to assessment, and “my role is to help students disaggregate these two things.” So, her classes require that students conduct in-depth peer assessments, and then she grades the quality of their assessments. These assessments are graded not only in terms of the criteria that students identify as critical to a successful assignment, and their justifications for why these criteria are important, but also the kindness of the assessment that they provide. She highlighted kindness as a critical skill for students as developing citizens.

To close, Marisa said that one of her overarching goals for her teaching is to cultivate students who are willing to serve others, and her teaching approach helps students to learn how to serve and thus how to lead. As she reflected on her views of leadership, she stated, “Leadership is not something you know. It is something you have to constantly cultivate.” 

We are thankful to Dr. Parham for her leadership and for sharing her reflections with us all.