Teachers and professors often make sophomoric errors while teaching.  I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have never been confronted with their errors, hence this page.

Asking the whole class a question that at most one person can answer

This is almost always an error.  The only time it could be correctly used is a rhetorical question--one that students know they don't actually have to answer.

• Wrong: "How many of you have ever been to Canada?"
• It is highly unlikely that any student would know where all the other students have been, so who will answer the question.
• Better: "Please raise your hand if you have been to Canada?"
• Wrong: "What is the capital of Yugoslavia?"
• Who are you asking?  Each student is thinking the same thing: "I don't have to answer; I won't bother."  Students think this whether they know the answer or not.
• Better: "John, what is the capital of Yugoslavia?"  This forces the whole class to pay attention: you never know if you are going to be the one who gets called on next.

Mistaking knowing the name of something for knowing the thing

I actually have a textbook that has a chapter called "Being Virtuous."  By the end of the chapter I knew that I should be virtuous but I didn't have the slightest idea how to do it.  Many professors fail to realize that all their students already know that they must be virtuous and that repeating the slogan will not improve their ability.

Giving overly general lectures

Lectures lacking specifics are categorically useless.  Usually after a few sentences into such a presentation I realize that I will be getting nothing useful from the presentation.  I sat in a lecture titled "Ethical Communication" because it was required, but even the title told me that I was wasting my time.  Fifty minutes later, all I knew was that I should communicate ethically (not how to do it).

Presenting voluminous, sparse lectures

Repetition on the part of the student may be the sound of learning, but being an overly repetitive lecturer wastes valuable time.  I have had more than one professor who have made the mistake of repeating a particularly enjoyable (i.e., enjoyable to them) topic in order to avoid discussing more paramount material.  For example, some professors will bring up topics of "social justice" (such as the terrible fact that men have dominated most "prominent" roles through most of history) rather than discussing an important but difficult programming concept.

Giving lectures with no effect on long-term memory

Unless long-term memory has been affected during a presentation, no learning has occurred.  Therefore, if after one week from a lecture, an attendee scores near zero on a test applying the content of that presentation, the lecture was a failure.  In my own experience, the information presented during a typical Sunday School lesson has a retention as near zero as possible (~5-10%).

No and/or ambiguous feedback on classwork

receiving 7/10 on an assignment with no indication of what was missing to not get a 10/10, or what accounted for the 7 marks that were awarded

Purely academic work/tests

even professors who have held jobs in areas which require almost only practical knowledge can fall into the trap of

Testing input versus output

testing to see if people read something rather than if they gained the knowledge they will need in the future (post course)

Assuming that someone who knows the material/practice well can teach it well

This is more of an administrative problem, but it fits closely with other common mistakes in the classroom because of the effects it has on the teaching that happens in the classroom.

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