Tim Becker

Excellence in Teaching Spotlight by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Virginia Tech

The Excellence in Teaching Spotlight, presented by the center to approximately nine Virginia Tech faculty members each academic year, recognizes a faculty member's effective, engaged, and dynamic approaches and achievements as an educator.

Among the goals of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning are advancing experiential learning at Virginia Tech and improving student learning through research-based instructional practices and student-centered design. In the classroom, Becker meets students where they are and guides them through deconstructing certain unhelpful assumptions they may have about writing: “Many students arrive to the first day of class with negative attitudes, emotions, and anxieties about writing. Even those who excelled at writing in high school find themselves faced with unexpected challenges, such as having to write like a historian in one class and a chemist in another, or discovering that their tried-and-true habits are insufficient for college-level projects. Regardless of past experience or present literacy, most students don’t consider themselves writers at all. Writers are born, they believe, not made through practice and reflection. This is just one of several bad ideas about writing that I deconstruct in my first-year writing courses. Other myths to bust include the assumptions that good writers get things right the first time and don’t need feedback; that effective drafting is linear rather than recursive; that research starts with answers (e.g., a thesis or stance to support) instead of questions that need answering; that error is a sign of failure rather than a necessary stage of learning.”

Becker’s colleagues and fellow instructors, Laura Fehr and Justin Greene, acknowledged the positive impact he makes in the classroom. Fehr described Becker’s approach this way: “Tim Becker’s sincere commitment to student learning and well-being creates this lovely, warm environment where students show up as their authentic selves. His fun, highly interactive teaching style enables students to experiment with rhetorical processes as they engage in the serious task of thinking critically about texts and ideas.”

Greene shared a similar sentiment, reflecting on his observation of Becker’s English 1106: Writing from Research course: “Having observed his English 1106: Writing from Research class, I saw firsthand Tim's innovative and empathetic teaching. Tim integrates technology seamlessly into his pedagogy, while also providing students with instruction on how technology is just a tool in the writing and research process that extends our own creativity and knowledge. Tim clearly explained concepts and helped students realize they encountered them in everyday life, making the application of specific concepts to the writing situation and research process easier. Tim spent time with students, and he genuinely valued their ideas on the larger lessons for the day. His rapport with students was natural—professional yet friendly, helping students feel at ease in the classroom. Tim exhibits all of the qualities that a great teacher needs!”

Ellie Podell, a former student of Becker’s, highlighted her appreciation for the strong sense of community Becker fostered in the classroom: “What stood out most was Tim’s intentionality in building community. Every class started with a few minutes of social time to help students connect on topics outside of class with one another. This was especially meaningful because we were all freshmen, and having familiar faces on campus made a big difference. Tim made each student feel important and valued. He really got to know each of his students individually through one-on-one meetings with them, having us fill out flashcards with questions of the day before each class, and through fun discussions before and after class. By the end of the semester, he knew everyone's name.”

Beyond the classroom, Becker was instrumental in creating a series of Canvas Learning Sessions that have been used throughout Virginia Tech and even around the world: “As part of two generous Pathways General Education grants, our interdisciplinary team (consisting of folks from the University Writing Program, TLOS, and the VT Libraries) designed a series of Canvas Learning Sessions comprised of videos, reflective writing activities, and discussion prompts regarding topics including rhetorical analysis, peer review, writing portfolio curation, digital literacy, and multimodal composition. In addition to being used across Virginia Tech, some of the materials we created have impacted universities around the globe! For example, our video “How to Write Effective Peer Review Comments” became the most watched YouTube video on the subject with 70,000+ views, more than half outside the U.S., and has been embedded in guides for 20+ universities. The main idea behind this video, which is rooted in empirical research in the field Writing Studies, is that the best peer review comments are specific and focused on higher-order concerns (engaging with the ideas being developed, being curious and asking genuine questions, etc.) rather than fixing sentence-level errors.”

Becker provided the following advice for new college teachers: “Many new teachers are focused on being in control, setting and following rules, and seeming authoritative, but learning—both your students’ learning and your own—requires trial and error. Allow your students and yourself to make mistakes and learn from them rather than defining success as being error-free! This is not only empirically supported by research in cognitive science and education, but also more enjoyable for everyone.”