| Oliver Wendell Holmes, the
physician, essayist and writer
once
said, "The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but
in what direction we are moving." Retired
U.S. Navy officer and "Geography is NOT about naming state or national capitals!" Shaw states on his website. "You should have learned them in the fourth grade. It is also not about the highest mountain or the longest river or where Bhutan is located. Those are things you should know by this point in your education. However, these things are not unimportant; they are bits of information which help us to understand the most important question in Geography: Why?" At the beginning of each semester, Shaw has his students set up a meeting with him to clarify any questions, become more familiar with his teaching policies, web site, course content, or anything else relevant to the course. In addition, he uses this interview to assess which students may experience undue difficulty with oral examinations. This initial meeting also helps the student see the exam environment and take some of the edge off the first exam. Shaw has a handful of opportunities for students to ultimately decide if they want to study geography. Among these opportunities is the online listserv and website, which operates as a question and answer forum, a calendar, and a scheduler. Shaw has taught at the College of Charleston since 1999 and is a former senior instructor at the Unites States Naval Academy, The Citadel, Trident Technical College and Brigham Young University. He says he takes it as part of his responsibility to prevent students from straying off track during an exam. "I want to know what they know, not what they don't know." Shaw likens this interaction to a safety net to catch any lost students with frequent meetings that ensure the student is retaining the course information. This method creates an open door policy for concerns and increases professor-to-student communication, which goes along with his unique method of testing students. Shaw utilizes the Socratic method of question and answer for his major oral examinations. Translation: his tests are not written exams as is the norm, but are oral exams. Students have access to four-to-nine broad questions and a study guide prior to each exam. At the beginning of each exam, the students randomly select the question they will respond to. "Due to the lack of quality geography instruction in American schools this is a hard class for most students," he says, adding that those who underestimate the difficulty "are in for a wild ride." He says for some students the task is daunting while others bask in the opportunity to show off what they know. Shaw administers tests to his students through open lines of communication. He is able to verbally guide them toward demonstrating their understanding and knowledge if the students are prepared. His teaching is unique and is different from other professors because he expects students not only to learn the course material, but also be able to discuss the human interaction backed with geographic examples in a one-on-one dialogue that takes place in Shaw's office by appointment only. His office and test center are perched in the third floor of the Department of Political Science offices at the corner of Wentworth and Coming Streets. During each student’s oral examinations, Professor Shaw patiently sits behind his laptop pecking away at points, recording remarks, while scrolling a spreadsheet rubric of the topic at hand. This ensures uniformity of grading and provides a written record or the exam. At the conclusion of the exam, the students are debriefed on their performance and told their grade. His course topics include population dynamics and movement, settlements and urbanization agriculture, economic development and trade, political organization and power. Shaw carefully analyzes each topic in class so that the students will be given all of the necessary tools to formulate educated and informed responses during the oral tests. The students are grateful for the opportunity to be taught in such a way. One Shaw student admitted to "enjoying the individual interaction." "If you don't know the material well enough to discuss it in extreme detail, you might as well break your exam appointment," said another student about coming unprepared. Shaw seeks to discover why something occurs the way it does not just that it does occur. He describes his test environment as "an interactive kind" of learning. Shaw is "looking to see how clear [the students] understanding is." "I am interested in processes that affect human beings today and in the future," he explains. "Most people think geography is names, dates and cities... [Shaw shakes his head] We study space or spatial relations the way historians study time." For more information about Professor Maxwell Shaw, please see his website at http://www.cofc.edu/~cofcgeog/ ###
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 Maxwell Shaw
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