Teaching in Freshman Academy

We ask that you consider adopting these principles into your thinking as you teach:

1. Freshmen are at the start of their University experience and it is a privilege to teach them and influence them in their personal and career development.
2. We see the students as young men and women becoming whole persons, not as incipient scholars or "youngsters." In accordance with BYU's mission statement, we believe "all instruction . . . should [contribute] toward the balanced development of the total person."
3. The purpose of teaching is to foster learning, and learning is a property of the student, not the teacher.
4. Learning needs to become personally significant. If the students can not internalize truths learned, then we are just preparing reproducers of knowledge.
5. Evaluation is critical to learning. The actual assessment practice in a course is far greater than any espoused-but-not-practiced principles of assessment written in a syllabus.

These principles have been developed over years of joint efforts with staff and faculty members. They were established with the following criteria in mind:

1. Ideas for teaching are derived from knowledge about learning.
2. Principles use everyday language, not jargon.
3. Learning is seen in its context: the learner, the teacher, subject matter, assessment, and the institutional/departmental perspective on teaching and learning--as well as the potential interactions--among these.
4. The current list of principles is never assumed to be the ultimate list.

Above all, we know love is central, not peripheral, to great teaching. Love is a positive force that effectively encourages people to do better than they otherwise would. Its essence is patience and faith in the individual's potential.