Catching small errors in lecture materials

Question

I'm a Ph.D. student in linguistics and a relatively new course instructor. My understanding of the material is not in doubt. But I'm doing a really poor job of catching small errors. Even when I check my lecture slides afterwards, I don't find them all. Almost every week, I'm having to email my students at least once telling them that diagram X was mislabeled or example Y was in the wrong place or I said something completely backwards. I don't want to end up overapologizing, but I feel like my teaching is unacceptably sloppy. I do put a lot of time and effort into considering/rehearsing how to teach things, and I compare my approaches to materials from several previous instructors of the same courses. This does not seem to have been enough.

I normally take pride in getting details right. Heck, I used to work as a proofreader and built up quite a stellar reputation! I know that teaching a course is a big job and that I have the instincts of a perfectionist. Nonetheless, I'm doing a much poorer job than usual when it comes to getting things right. If I were one of my own students, I think I'd be rolling my eyes at myself by now.

What sorts of strategies do others use in order to catch errors in their own teaching ahead of time? I'm very urgently wanting this to be less of a problem. There's no need for these little disruptions and I'm irritated with myself for confusing my students so much.

Thank you!

Answer 1

If you catch this during teaching, this means that you probably should rehearse (out loud) and then similarly things should emerge. You already mentioned you rehearse, but maybe you need to rehearse in a more elaborate manner (in a different room, in front of a mirror, etc.) to change your mindset and then find new mistakes. If you rehearse in your head in front of your PC, you are stuck in the same state of mind and won't find mistakes.

Other typical approaches:

• Typical proofread advice
  • Read from back to front and mirror images/figures to get a fresh view upon things. This helps finding misplaced labels.
  • Spellcheckers and other digital proofing tools (programs which check if borders are met, elements are hidden, etc.)
• Teaching notes as bullet points, which you periodically check during the lecture, to ensure you are still on track and have told everything you want to tell (i.e. have not forgotten some points)
  • These should also uncover any kind of logical mistakes. If you follow your line of thought during rehearsal, this should help explaining correctly and in order.
  • Notes provide self-confidence, which greatly reduces being error-prone. If you are less nervous, things go easier and mistakes are not so disrupting.
• Find someone to proofread (either mutual agreement with someone or pay someone until you are more experienced. A student could be a good choice)

Finally, things can and will go wrong. It is more about how you handle the mistakes. Maybe simply update your slides after the lecture and tell the student next week, that last weeks slides were updated, with comments where things were not explained correctly.

Answer 2

It is next to impossible to catch your own mistakes. It does help to get into the mindset "I know nothing about this" (yes, it does work, suprisingly), and read carefully making sure stuff used has been explained beforehand.

As a knowledgeable person on the subject, it is doubly hard to understand where students struggle. A useful technique is to give them "extra homework" to carefully read and critique handouts. Perhaps give extra points for mistakes found, pointing out unclear passages, suggested examples.