How to Start a Faculty Career: Teaching (Part 3)

Hello Everyone, and welcome back!

In my experience, teaching is the aspect of a faculty job where new faculty struggle the most. For example, they tend to struggle with time management and are not sure how to react to student feedback. With this video,  we conclude the mini-series about staring a faculty job and we focus on this fundamental aspect, teaching, with useful advice for a great start of an academic career.

We have already covered two of the three fundamental parts:

• Research: https://youtu.be/zwXP6h_457Q

• Service: https://youtu.be/AfRrY803nMA

Before we start, I want to highlight that I have worked for most of my career in the United States, in research oriented institutions. While most of what I am going to say is useful for all new faculties in the US and abroad, including those in teaching oriented institutions, my advice  may resonate more with those who are working at a research institution.

Understanding your teaching load and expectations

Let’s start by talking about understanding your teaching load and expectations

As you start your faculty career, and potentially even before you accept your offer letter, you should understand your teaching load. This may vary widely from institution to institution. The teaching load refers first and foremost to how many classes you are going to teach every semester. However, it also goes well beyond that. Other important aspects are: what type of classes these are (for example graduate or  undergraduate); what is the typical class size; are these new classes you need to prepare from scratch  or old classes for which the material is available; are you able to change the syllabus or are you required to stick with a book and pre-defined content, etc.

Most departments will allow you to design a new graduate class centered around your research. This is an important opportunity because it will allow you to interact with many graduate students, expose them to your research interests, pre-train them, and potentially find some students who will join your lab.

I think it is important also to negotiate with your Chair, in the limits of what is possible, which classes you are going to teach in your tenure tack. My suggestion is to try to stick to the same classes as much as possible. Preparing new classes takes a significant amount of time. Teaching the same classes reduces the load,  and you can use that time to work on your research.

Efficient time management for teaching.

It is well known that teaching is a time-sucker. You will need to prepare lectures, slides, homework, grading, office hours, etc. Therefore, let’s talk about efficient time management for teaching.

In teaching, as in many other things in life, the 80/20 rule applies. That is, it takes 20% of the time to get 80% of the outcome (e.g., your teaching evaluation), but it takes 80% of the time to achieve the remaining 20%. While this could be an exaggeration, it is true that many simple behavioral changes can provide significant improvement to your teaching. However, achieving perfect teaching evaluations, or trying to please every possible student, may result in consuming all your time, and not leaving anything for other important aspects of your job.

Some practical advice I share for my experience are the following. First, try to rely on existing material. Pick a solid book that has been used at your or other high quality institutions. A book that provides slides, it is easy to follow, and naturally helps you develop your course around it. You do not need to follow word by word what the book says, but it will be much easier to come up with a structure. Similarly, you can also use the material of whoever taught this class before you in your department. In any case, you can adjust the content over the years to your preference as you see what works and what does not.

You may be familiar with the  idiom “Give them an inch and they take a mile.” You definitely want to be available for your students, be there at office hours, answer questions during or after class, and listen to their concerns. However, there will be a few students who will test the boundaries and try to abuse your time. You need to set healthy boundaries to make most of the student feel that you are available, but at the same time ensure your time is respected you will be able to work on other important things (e.g., submitting papers, proposals, advising phd students, etc.).

Get ready for some harsh critics, and improve overtime

As a teacher, you should get ready for harsh critics, and improve overtime

After you complete a semester, you will receive your first teaching evaluations. These are generally qualitative and quantitative measures of your teaching performance. I am confident to say that, for most of you, these evaluations will contain some harsh unapologetic criticism of your teaching style. So let’s talk about how to react to these in a healthy and positive way.

First, you need to realize that you cannot be liked by everyone. Your teaching style, as good as it can be, will not match the preferences of all students. Some will prefer more slides, some less; some will prefer more homework, some less; some will want more hands-on experience, some less; and so on. Therefore, there will be inevitably some negative comments, especially if the class is large.

Nevertheless, you should not ignore the evaluations. In my experience, by carefully reading the students’ comments you can identify many low-hanging fruits that will allow you to improve the students’ experience (and consequently your teaching evaluations) with minimal  effort on your side. As an example, in one of the classes I taught, there has been a recurring comment about assigning the project earlier, or to assign homework more evenly throughout the semester. In another one, students requested better availability of the TA, or to post the slides online. These were clearly simple changes that helped students significantly, but did not cost me particular effort.

While you should not ignore the evaluations, you should also not over-react. I suggest you look at recurring comments, that many students bring up. Do not change your entire class because a single student did not like something.

I also suggest you to share your evaluations with experienced colleagues, who can guide you in identifying possible aspects to improve. They can help you navigate the delicate balance between addressing the students’ concerns and manage your time effectively

Understand your students

A common mistake new teachers make is to assume that students have your own level of preparedness. Clearly this is no true, but you really need to understand the level of preparation of your students. Which classes they took, and if some key concepts in your class can be given as already assimilated or not. In my classes, when there is a concept that I think students may not familiar with, I ask them directly. Some years, most students may not need a refreshment, but some other years that same concept may be unknown to most. It is also a good practice to present yourself as approachable, so that students would have no problems asking you to clarify things they do not understand or know.

Over the years, you will be able to fine-tune the class to the typical level of your students, and smooth potential hiccups that happened in the first years you taught that class.

Reality check and encouraging words

Let’s conclude this video with some reality check and encouraging words.

First, you should be aware that everyone struggles in their first year. Even natural-born teachers need to learn and adapt. Do not be discouraged if your evaluations are not perfect, and not even if they are not great. That is your starting point, your floor, and now you have the possibility to improve from there.

Second piece of advice, you do NOT need to be perfect. We mention this before, but it is worth repeating, it is impossible to be liked by everyone. Even the best teachers receive some critics.

As a corollary of this, your institution will want you to improve over time. While you will need to prove to be a good teacher by the end of your tenure-track, nobody expects you to excel on day 1.

Finally, students tend to value and appreciate clarity, fairness, and kindness more than flashy lectures. Try to develop your teaching philosophy around these pillars, and be willing to improve, and I am confident you will become an amazing teacher.

Thank you very much for watching this video. Please let me know in the comments if you were able to apply any of this advice in your class and if there are other suggestions you would give to fresh faculty.

See you next time!