Northcentral University

7 Mike Knerr, PhD, IMFT-S Full-Time Faculty, Department of Marriage and Family Sciences One of my favorite stories about learning is "The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz" (bio here). It is a simple parable about the value of students developing their observation skills, and continuing to do so throughout the educational process. I like it because it is simple. But also, because "Agassiz and His Fish" keep finding me over and over again, no matter where I have been in school or what jobs I have held. I first read the story in a 9 th grade English class. At the time, I was just grateful that the reading homework for the day was only two pages long. Whew! We undoubtedly had some sort of discussion about it, but I have no memory of it. "Agassiz and His Fish" appeared again in my freshman chemistry class. This was also a relief, since taking chemistry was a bad decision on my part. A day to discuss a short story seemed like a good idea to me. I think I remembered the story from high school because of the name – Professor Agassiz. This time we had a more meaningful discussion – mainly about how easy it is to think 'I've seen it' and realize I moved way too fast and there was much more to observe. Since I have an incorrigible need to keep going back to school, "Agassiz and His Fish" appeared again in all three of my visits to graduate education. In one course or another, the story showed up and we spent time discussing the skills required to become a good observer, and how that would benefit us as students. Each time "Agassiz and His Fish" reappeared, the focus was on how the story would apply to me – the student. It took a long time for me to shift and ask myself, how do "Agassiz and His Fish" apply to me – the instructor? One way that I have found "Agassiz and His Fish" helpful to me at NCU is that it reminds me to periodically pause and "look, look, look" as Agassiz says in the story. In terms of teaching, this has helped me develop the habit of periodically looking back at the courses I am teaching and thinking about any trends or themes that stand out. Are there some assignments that are particularly difficult to assess? Or ones where students consistently miss something? Or ways that I seem to confuse students repeatedly? I don't really have a goal or idea; but stopping and looking back at the last 30 students I had in a course sometimes turns up a good idea. With help from Dr. Mindi Mull, one of these ideas has been to make use of student notifications in NCUone. (I needed Mindi to walk me through the whole 'how do I do this' part of the process). I took some of the trends I spotted – for example, in one course, students kept

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