March 1997
In
honoring teaching scholars, we begin in this issue of Communiqué
to tell the story of a teaching scholar. One persons story is often
an inspiration to others. We begin by featuring Dr. Donald Kleier, whose
story contains a challenge to us all.
- Mary Ann Shea, PTS Program Director
Inquisitive Mind Shapes Interesting Teacher: Dr. Donald J. Kleier, D.M.D.
"I'm an inquisitive person by nature," says Dr. Donald J. Kleier, "and that's both a blessing and a curse." Everything seems to intrigue this teaching scholar, whose love of life and people is immediately apparent, even to strangers. For his students, patients, and colleagues — if not for Kleier himself — his inquisitive nature is a blessing that makes him engaging, interesting, and effective.
Kleier, an endodontist, serves as chair of the department of surgical dentistry at the CU-Health Sciences Center. He has enjoyed every phase of his career, which has taken him to Kentucky, Washington, Kansas, and Colorado, with recent working trips to Nicaragua and Iceland. "I feel like I've done a lot of different things within my career, so its been a real journey. I feel like sometimes I've been wandering here and there, and I see things that really interest me, and I want to go in that direction, and theres something over here that really interests me — so I find myself getting involved in a lot of different things."
Kleier's experience includes the usual professional training as well as military service (he earned the rank of major), private practice, outstanding teaching and scholarship, and extensive professional and community service. That varied background gives him credibility with his diverse daily contacts: patients, students, colleagues, and dentists taking continuing education courses. "Because I've had a breadth of experience, I can relate to people going into different fields," he says. "I've been there and done that."
An impressive vita documents Kleier's professional success, but it doesn't describe the career he anticipated when he started. "I thought Id practice for 20 years and then retire," he admits. After finishing his residency at the University of Kentucky, he was invited to stay on and teach for a year. He accepted, thinking it would be somewhere to park for awhile, until things happened. "Something did happen: I got bitten by the bug. There was an excitement, a variety, a chance to contribute or give that appealed to me."
Kleier worked in private practice for awhile, but when a position at CU-HSC opened up, he leapt at it. He still maintains a part-time private practice, and in his mind, clinical work, research, and teaching are one unified endeavor. They're all so intimately connected that its hard to describe a separation. For example, technology and treatment methods are always changing in endodontics, so Kleier is always trying new things in his practice and carrying them into class.
The cross-relationships work both ways; to Kleier, his patients are also his students. "Dentistry," he says, "is a great profession, because its crucial that the patient be the student and the doctor be the teacher. When dentists teach patients about the disease process, patients can have a direct influence on the disease." Kleier's role as teaching scholar shapes his clinical practice in another way. When faced with the option of employing a new treatment method, for example, he mentally challenges himself by asking if the research supports adopting the new procedure in a given situation. "It makes me be more of a scientific practitioner," he explains.
When Kleier talks about his career, an unexpected theme emerges: communication. Its importance shows in his comments about patients as students. It's also embedded in his description of why dentistry appealed to him as a profession when he was in high school. After commenting on his positive experiences with orthodontics and other dental work, and adding that he "liked sciences" and "was a bit of a nerd", Kleier says the blend of science, communication, intimate connection with people, and a healing profession that was well respected was attractive. "And," he adds, "somehow I had the confidence that I could help people get through the dental experience with empathy." The ability to communicate that empathy is one of Kleier's hallmark traits. Competent, caring, and fun is how he imagines both patients and students see him. He adds, "I believe its important to have fun in everything you do."
Communication remains a motif when Kleier discusses his research, which focuses on the field of endodontics in general and new techniques for root canal therapy in particular. But sometimes the most important research involves challenging whats done in the community in terms of procedures and practices. "Doing research with people — that's my favorite way to do research." It's a difficult endeavor that calls upon Kleier's finely tuned interpersonal skills.
Kleier believes he has an advantage over his nonclinical teaching colleagues. "I feel sorry," he says, "for my other University colleagues who don't get to work with students in a highly charged atmosphere where student and teacher work one-on-one in a hands-on situation." His greatest satisfaction as a teacher comes when a student is working with him in a clinical situation. Sometimes, as he's explaining a difficult concept, drawing diagrams and showing the student how something works in practice, the student has an "Ah-ha!" experience. "The student's face, the countenance changes. It almost has an aura. It's just like the light bulb went on, and you know they really did get it, and you know its going to stay with them." In the absence of such clinical experiences, he suggests that mentoring and office hours are especially important elements in making learning interactive and personal.
Kleier's office furnishings could serve as a metaphor for his teaching approaches. On one side of his compact room sits an antique wooden rolltop desk, evocative of the high-touch, personal attention we often associate with health-care professionals of bygone eras. An arms length away, against the other wall, sit a computer and slide trays, emblematic of Kleier's dedication to incorporating new techniques, as warranted, into both his practice and teaching. He has, for example, recently written an Education Technology grant proposal for distance learning through the use of a surgical operating microscope.
One of Kleier's many nonmedical interests is photography. Even though he wasn't a photographer before he entered the field of dentistry, he now has a substantial collection of photographic equipment and routinely uses slides, video clips, and electronic presentations as teaching tools. Kleier notes that, because dentistry is a very visual profession, these are logical classroom aids. By injecting visual elements into his courses, he's able to communicate complex concepts more effectively than with words alone.
Constantly revising courses based on his research, clinical work, and exploration of other teaching techniques and learning styles ensures that Kleier stays interested in his work: If it stimulates me, that will carry over. Kleier, an avowed physical fitness nut, notes that maintaining a balance between his career and the rest of his life also helps him bring energy and excitement to his various professional roles.
If there's a secret to Kleier's success as a practitioner, scholar, and dentist, it would have to be a personal philosophy that's central to all of his life. "It's up to every person to lead an interesting life and be an interesting person," Kleier believes, "and that's not something that happens; that's something that individuals have to create for themselves."
Small Group Learning for Teachers
Dr. Kleier calls his wife, a pediatric dentist, an ace in his back pocket. Having an empathetic colleague on call to serve as a sounding board for ideas helps with problem solving and brings energy to his work. As he reflects further on the value of this role, Kleier mentions a small, informal group that his wife belongs to. Periodically, a handful of her colleagues from different geographic areas — who call themselves the Rat Pack — convene to discuss challenges in their field. There's some play, but there's a lot of work. And everybody brings a different perspective to the problem, whatever it might be.Noting that students have study groups, he muses, I wonder how many faculty have study groups. Opportunities to meet with a small group of specialists, to have an agenda and ask ourselves difficult questions are rare.
Fundamentals of
Teaching:
Connecting with Students in Large Classes
Michael Grant,
EPO Biology, Boulder Campus
One of my most frustrating tasks as an instructor is to try to work in the large lecture environment, because it tends to disconnect the instructor from the students as individuals. I am always looking for new ways to reduce the effective class size. Here are two strategies that seem to help quite a bit.
Suggestion One
I take two scheduled office hours per week, change their identity, and move their location. Instead of office hours, I call them weekly review sessions, and instead of having them in my office, I have them in a classroom. I try to stagger those two hours to make it possible for as many students as possible to attend at least one review session (for example, 56 Mondays and 56 Tuesdays).Instead of having anywhere from zero to five students come in during office hours for course assistance, I get anywhere from two or three dozen up to twice that number. (Yes — just before exams, the idea gets increasingly popular with students!)
I get to know the students on a bit more personal level, and they me. Invariably, this device is mentioned as extremely helpful by students in course evaluations. A secondary goal is to reduce the tendency to adopt the night-before cramming study pattern, which is, I believe, encouraged by having big review sessions immediately before exams.
Suggestion Two
To improve the connectedness between me and my students, I always bring two large empty boxes to class and place them near the exits. In my syllabus, and again orally, I state that the purpose of these boxes is to encourage student communication with me: complaints, suggestions, questions over the material, and any other comments (rude or otherwise) that they wish to make. I find this reaches some segments of the class that I cannot reach any other way — those who would never ask a question in front of the class will often do so this way.In addition to giving students regular opportunities to communicate (with occasional reminders to use them), I believe it is essential to validate those comments offered. If a question over the material has been asked, I state that someone dropped this question into the box and then I deal with it directly. If a suggestion is made (and I often get these) such as, "Don't have an exam on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving!", I report the suggestion to the whole class and then either accept the suggestion or briefly explain why I won't.
It only takes me two or three minutes, typically at the beginning of each class, to recognize the students in this way. My experience is that their sense of connectedness to me and to the class is significantly enhanced.
Fundamentals of
Teaching:
Using Student-Teacher Liaisons
Dale G. Meyer,
Business, Boulder Campus
In all of my classes, I use what I used to call a "quality circle" (now called a Student Service team), whereby three or four students are the conduit to recommend changes in the course process during the semester. They are networked to the whole class by e-mail, so there is a very open network of suggestions (and we do make changes that are reasonable, including clarifications of confusing subject matter).
Fundamentals of
Teaching:
Using Student-Teacher Liaisons
J. John Cohen,
M.D., Medicine, Health Sciences Center Campus
Dale's use of Student Service Teams is similar to what we do in the School of Medicine. Each course has two Course Representatives who mediate between the instructor and the class. They help with the design of the special course evaluation forms we use and gather the responses so that they reach the Ed Services office without being handled by the instructor. This year I found them very helpful in determining the extent of Internet access in the class.
Communiqué, a publication about the President's Teaching Scholars Program, is published twice per year by the University of Colorado. Copyright ©1997 - 2002 The Regents of the University of Colorado, a body corporate.
Program Director: Mary Ann Shea 360 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0360 Phone: (303) 492-4985 E-mail: MaryAnn.Shea@Colorado.EDU