This month I asked a couple of instructor-focused social media groups for advice for new instructors. I loosely grouped these into Taking Care of Yourself, Your Syllabus, Teaching the Class, and Other. Here is the compiled list (duplicates removed):
Taking Care of Yourself
- Use every class as a learning event about how to teach.
- Teaching is an ongoing learning process that extends beyond graduation and hiring. Remain flexible to accommodate this growth.
- Practice empathy with clear boundaries to maintain your well-being.
- Don’t be afraid to reach out to your colleagues for support or with questions. While all of their advice won’t be useful or applicable to you and your teaching style, they can be a wealth of knowledge. Plus, it fosters collegiality and solidarity.
- After every class session take time to reflect on how it went. And take notes.
- Expect trial and error. Sometimes it takes a few goes to figure out what works for you and your students. The process can feel discouraging or overwhelming, but part of being an educator is upholding your own curiosity and adaptability.
- Make sure that you know what should be left for “future you” to do. “Current you” needs to just survive!!
- Don’t be afraid to incorporate your personality into the class.
- Plan your assignment due dates around your life outside of work. You’ll regret taking those essay exams on your family vacation to Disney World.
- Nurture your energy and your patience.
- Be ready for situations beyond your control that crush ideologies you hold about teaching. Especially in the United States.
- Have a plan B. I found out I hated teaching for schools and found my place working for museums.
- Remember that you are extremely qualified for your position. Don’t let imposter syndrome get to you.
- Be flexible. You are allowed to change your mind, your approach, your teaching style, anything.
Your Syllabus
- Know you’re going to see just how unclear you actually were once the students show up.
- Always follow the policies in your syllabus, for every student. Any changes you make during the semester must apply to all students. I was an associate Dean for many years. When a student had a complaint about a class, we would always look at the syllabus. If the faculty member followed their syllabus, they were fine.
- Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and it’s going on the syllabus.
- Make your syllabus available electronically so students can always access it. If you have to make changes to your syllabus, track changes on the last page (include timestamp and reason for change)
- Be VERY clear in the syllabus about your expectations. Write them as if you’re teaching kindergarteners.
- As others have said, be very clear in your syllabus. I have a section with my own policies after the university policies (that we’re required to include). Every policy I have has a bad incident at its root.
- Find your university syllabus template. This is probably available from the teaching and learning center or faculty resource center. It will (hopefully) include all the policy statements you are required to include.
- Your syllabus is your contract with your students. Stick to your contract.
Teaching the Class
- About a week before your first class, if possible, go visit the room and find out what technology is in there. Does it have chalk/markers? A presentation system? Can you move the tables around? Check for everything you may need.
- Figure out the learning goals for your course then build content and assignments to achieve those goals
- Map out how you think you want your course to go, thinking about what sequence makes sense, but then prepare to pivot
- Rubrics are your friend
- If you are teaching online, ake sure you know what LMS (D2L, Moodle, Canvas, BlackBoard…) and what features it has (discussion board, chat, small group break-out…)
- On Day 1, focus on a big idea of the class and try to activate students’ voices and prior knowledge. The syllabus and course details can wait until Day 2.
- Use the first day to show the students how exciting your subject is, how much you enjoy it, and/or why they need the content.
- It takes several semesters of teaching a class before you get the flow right. I didn’t believe this when I started, but it’s true.
- If your classroom has a microphone, USE IT. A lot of teachers think they don’t need it, but it makes you so much easier to hear clearly and you never know if anyone in the room has difficulty with hearing or auditory processing.
- Enunciate. Speak loudly and clearly. Learn to be comfortable around all the different students you will have. People are animals – they can read if you are cool with them or not. Be respectful.
- Know your student, don’t assume
- If you don’t know the type(s) of students will be in your class (year of study, % international, accessibility needs, etc.) find out from Registrar, CTL, etc.
Other
- Get to know your instructional technology support staff (if they exist).
- Find the teaching and learning center – this area is specifically geared to help you teach well.
- Especially for fully face-to-face classes, plan for disruptions to instructional time (e.g., weather, fire drill).
- Before your first class, complete the Emergency Support Information You Should Have form.
- Consider completing this form as well: Gathering Basic Info for Support