Chapter 3019: Mercury Notes (16)

The Basic Psychology course taught by Schiller was the longest-running class he had taught during his time at Cat Getan University. Because psychology professors were in short supply and some of the students who stayed on to teach were not up to standard, Schiller could not focus solely on being a master's or doctoral supervisor. He had to teach undergraduate courses, and he had to cover everything from introductory to advanced levels. When he said he worked 40 hours a week, he meant he was solidly teaching for 40 hours.

But this had its benefits; he could lecture on the introductory course for Basic Psychology with his eyes closed. The so-called lesson plans were merely minor edits based on the undergraduate ones, with the general content remaining unchanged.

Basic Psychology was relatively dry. The opening few classes were all about various definitions, and the rest were basically introductions using various psychology masters and the history of psychological development. At Cat Getan University, this stage usually required 10 to 12 class hours to complete.

Among them, the first 5 hours were for memorization, the next 5 to 7 hours were for group discussions and presentations, and there would be 1 to 2 social practice classes afterward, which meant going out to the streets to conduct surveys.

After arriving on Mercury, Schiller discovered after teaching just two classes that using 5 hours for memorization was underestimating these students. They had already memorized all the key points he covered in the first two classes on their own time, so there was no need to repeat them. This part was compressed to about 3 class hours.

In other words, once today's morning class was over, the definition consolidation and memorization portion would already be finished.

Schiller was in his office thinking about how to arrange the upcoming group discussion and presentation hours.

Back at Cat Getan University, Schiller's teaching style was basically by the book, because just urging them to memorize and requiring them to complete the basic work for their presentations was already difficult enough.

Universities all over the world had this phenomenon: the gap between the top and bottom performers was extremely large, and professors could not spend too much time urging the underachievers. This resulted in having to consider too many things when pushing the curriculum forward.

He couldn't let the top students get too far ahead, nor could he completely ignore the few who didn't study, and he still had to meet the learning pace of the vast majority of average students. Therefore, every time he led a group activity class, Schiller was exhausted and saw no results.

For this reason, he had written many reports requesting the hiring of new undergraduate teaching staff so he could focus on leading graduate and doctoral students. But unfortunately, when Cat Getan's situation was bad, no one wanted to come, and when the situation finally improved, there was an economic crisis, and the school couldn't afford to hire new people.

It could be said that for over a decade, Schiller had single-handedly propped up the Psychology Department at Cat Getan University.

Sitting in his office, Schiller was also struggling with how to arrange the group activity classes for these students.

Theoretically, since they memorized so quickly, group classes should be a breeze. But what if they were only fast at memorizing and were poor at socializing and work coordination? If the class content was arranged too tightly, problems could easily arise.

The two classes Schiller taught were basically reading from the script, and the students were all looking down taking notes. There was no interaction between them, so if Schiller wanted to know about the students' social skills, he would have to ask other professors.

Schiller naturally found Oliver first, who was closest to him. It just so happened that the military class Oliver taught also required dividing into different camps for wargaming, and this type of activity was the best way to see comprehensive ability.

After hearing Schiller's question, Oliver thought carefully and said, "I think you must emphasize one requirement: every group must have people of all different races. That is, there must be Amazonian warriors, Atlanteans, humans, and preferably aliens or other superheroes."

"Because if you don't do this, they will be more willing to team up with their own kind, huddling together tightly. This won't achieve the goal of exercising their social skills at all, and it's also easy to trigger conflicts between races."

"Won't dividing them into groups prevent that?" Schiller asked.

"This can at least create balance," Oliver said. "Of course, you should also stipulate that there can only be one person of the same race in a group to avoid them bullying others with numbers."

Schiller felt a headache coming on. Racial discrimination basically didn't exist at Cat Getan University. In fact, racial discrimination didn't really exist in Cat Getan; skin color wasn't a big issue there. Under the muzzle of a gun, all beings were equal.

So Schiller had no experience in mediating racial conflicts, and no blind students dared to bring such conflicts to him.

But he knew just by thinking about it that it would be strange if there were no conflicts when several races with completely different living habits, living environments, educational backgrounds, and even physical structures were gathered together.

Therefore, the arrangement of group discussion classes is particularly important; once the situation Oliver mentioned of the same races huddling together occurs, the classroom effect will surely be disastrous.

Although the metaphor is not entirely accurate, it is somewhat like an emperor and his ministers. If the emperor allows the ministers to huddle together, his own leadership status will be replaced by the opinion leaders within the group. Once he cannot suppress them, subsequent teaching work will be very difficult to carry out.

Shiler cannot use force now; on one hand, he did not bring his umbrella, and on the other, his physical condition is not very good right now.

He also cannot adopt the method of calling parents that he often used during his time with the Cat Getan gangs. Diana, Arthur, and Oliver cannot be fully considered the leaders of these races, and their demands on them lack mandatory power. At most, they can only offer suggestions and cannot achieve mandatory restraint, so their deterrent power over these people is greatly reduced.

Moreover, Shiler cannot stand on the moral high ground because these students are far more excellent than the students at Cat Getan University. They can complete their learning tasks without any flaws, and in the case where the students have not made any mistakes, Shiler will not go out of his way to scold them for no reason.

Therefore, to lead a group discussion class well, Shiler really has to bring out some real skills.

After chatting with Oliver, Shiler went to find Clark. Clark was also working on a lesson plan, but his lesson plan was much more complicated. He spent the better part of the day looking up information. Fortunately, he is a Kryptonian, and it is especially close to the sun here; five minutes of charging lasts for several days. If it were anyone else, they might not be able to handle this workload.

Even so, the strong coffee on his desk never ran out. When Shiler entered, Clark did not even lift his head and said, "If you have any questions, send me an email. Describe the problem clearly, and I will reply within 24 hours."

"My question is probably not something that can be described clearly in an email. Clark, are you okay?"

"Oh, my god, Professor."

"You are a professor now too. Has anyone ever called you Professor Kent?"

Clark smiled brightly, stood up to pour coffee for Shiler, and said, "They always call me that, which makes me feel very awkward, but I can understand you a little bit now, Professor. The feeling of being a teacher is really good."

Shiler also smiled and sat down, saying, "I know you are busy, so I will be as brief as possible. After teaching so many classes, what is your opinion on these races? Who are the outstanding ones among them?"

"Well..." Clark dragged out the sound slightly and then said, "In fact, I feel pretty good about them. They are a group of smart and energetic children."

"Some of them are much older than you."

"You can't look at it that way, Professor. You have to look at their mental age, don't you? Although the Amazonian girls have long lifespans, they haven't been in society for many years, and the rest of the time they were training on a deserted island, so their mental maturity is about the same as that of a teenage girl."

"There are some extraterrestrial superheroes who have wandered in the universe for a long time and have seen quite a bit, but their physical and mental development is slower than that of short-lived species, and their mental age is only in their early twenties."

"Do you think you can't treat them as adults?"

"They are far from being mature." Clark shook his head and said, "The most mature among these races are actually humans, especially the children from Mexico. Their hometown is filled with poverty and riots, which makes them more mature than their peers."

"And what about Atlantis?"

"They have many strange and bizarre ideas." Clark laughed and said, "Their thinking is not on the same wavelength as humans, but they are always full of inspiration, positive, and enterprising. If you deal with them more, you will know that they are actually quite likable."

"When are you planning to start the group discussion class?"

Clark was slightly stunned and said, "Group discussion? Is there anything they can discuss?"

"No, Clark, it's not about them discussing something, but that there must be a process of discussion, rather than just you teaching them knowledge."

"Why do it this way?" Clark asked.

Shiler sighed. He suddenly discovered that he had overlooked a big problem, which was that these professors were not professionally trained, and they seemed to be setting up their courses according to their own ideas.

"Because accepting only one type of education for a long time easily forms thinking inertia, leading to rigid and stereotypical thinking. If we only accept knowledge from teachers in school, we usually call it spoon-feeding education."

"To avoid this phenomenon, educational methods must be enriched during the course, such as conducting group discussions, social practice, home experiments, etc., so that family education and social education can participate. Only in this way can we maintain the students' active thinking to the greatest extent."

Clark scratched his head and said, "I have already taught them three classes, and I think they are learning quite well."

"Have you finished the theoretical knowledge of the first part?"

"It should be about done. I have already introduced a lot."

"Can I see your lesson plan?"

Clark rummaged through a stack of papers. As soon as Shiler looked at it, he frowned. There was nothing wrong with what was written on it, but the problem was that this was not a lesson plan. It only contained knowledge and Clark's train of thought for presenting this knowledge, without mentioning the students at all.

Anyone who has had teaching experience or has passed the teacher qualification exam knows that the biggest difference between writing a thesis and writing a lesson plan is that a thesis only needs to be developed around knowledge, but a lesson plan must focus on the students; the listing of knowledge is all for the purpose of guiding the students.

Shiler sighed. He wanted to say something, but he didn't know where to start. He asked, "Did Diana never mention to you about starting group discussions?"

Clark shook his head and said, "She is a physical education teacher. Does physical education also need to be discussed?"

"That also requires group activities, including group practice and group confrontation. Have you not organized any social practice either?"

"We are on Mercury right now. Where can we go for practice?"

Shiler sighed deeply and said, "Although we are on Mercury, we haven't lost our internet connection. You can completely do online practice, or have video calls with their relatives, friends, and family."

Shiler put down the stack of lesson plans and said, "How about this: tonight at nine o'clock, we will take two hours to hold a teaching seminar. I will send you an email."