Colleges : Campus scene : FULLERTON : Teacher of Teachers Is Teacher of the Year

Not all teachers enjoy or even tolerate having their knowledge tested, but if they can learn to do so, they will be more effective in the classroom, says Carol P. Barnes, a professor at Cal State Fullerton. Good teachers encourage their students to challenge them, said Barnes, 54, the university’s outstanding professor this year and author of well-known texts for educators.

Teaching teachers to ask questions is one of the techniques that Barnes uses as an instructor in Cal State Fullerton’s school of elementary and bilingual education. She encourages educators to ask students to submit one written question on something they do not understand about the day’s class topic and also to write down one thing they learned.

“It is very helpful to the teacher,” she said, “because it gives an indication about what really went on in the classroom that day.”

Mary Kay Tetreault, Cal State Fullerton’s vice president for academic affairs, said that Barnes, a member of the university’s faculty since 1975, has gained the respect of her colleagues not only for her skill as an instructor but also for her research.

“Carol is very deserving,” Tetreault said. “I think everyone is familiar with her work, particularly a book she wrote called ‘The Beginning Teacher,’ which is quite an important book in the field of education.”

Barnes is also involved in setting up California’s system for accrediting educational programs at state universities.

“The state was looking at things such as the number of courses, the number of graduates . . . and how many teachers in the program have master’s degrees,” she said. The new standards will be “less like bean counting and will look at the quality of the courses, the instructors and the graduates.”