Questions tagged [teaching]
This tag is related to the role and duties of a teacher, an academic instructor, tutor or a teaching assistant.
1,052
questions
1
vote
1answer
109 views
Is it disadvantageous to have recommendation letters from postdoctoral fellows rather than professors? [duplicate]
I am a math PhD student in a US university and also a teaching assistant. This fall I’m expecting to apply for jobs. I’m looking for math lecturer/instructor jobs.
However, when I worked as a ...
4
votes
1answer
175 views
Is it common to have peer teaching evaluation for tenured/tenure-track faculty every year?
Is it common for US public universities to enforce peer teaching evaluations (have professors sit in each others' classes) for tenured faculty member every year? What about requiring evaluation twice ...
10
votes
2answers
351 views
My department promised graduate students a particular teaching load, but has found a loophole to increase it
I am a second year STEM PhD student at a large R1 public university in the United States. When I chose to come to this program, the department told me that I would have a teaching load of 3 classes ...
2
votes
2answers
111 views
Should I mention teaching experience in my cover letter?
I am applying for tenure-track positions in R1 (say, top 50) universities in Computer Science in the US.
When writing the cover letter, should I mention teaching experience and competence?
Or should ...
-3
votes
1answer
136 views
What are good methods for clarifying student uncertainty? [closed]
A primary task of professors is communication with their students.
Communicating typically involves lecturing, clarifying uncertainties, and receiving feedback. Lecturing happens at fixed times, but ...
3
votes
1answer
155 views
Will American high schools recognize a foreign MA? [closed]
I'm an American who's getting a Master's degree abroad. It's my understanding that an MA leads to an automatic pay raise in public schools, but I'm not sure if my two-year foreign MA would count. To ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
What are typical examples of “scholarly work”?
I am looking into applying to a teaching position at a liberal-arts institution. The application page asks for an example of scholarly work. What are good examples of scholarly work? For the sciences, ...
4
votes
2answers
209 views
How important is teaching experience?
I am a PhD student in economics in the UK. Recently, I have been hearing how important teaching experience is to find a job in academia as a lecturer. One needs to submit teaching statements and may ...
3
votes
2answers
63 views
Re-entering teaching after working in the industry (in Europe)
I have finished my PhD a while ago and have since worked at the university as lecturer. Now the contract is coming to an end and I am weighing two options: (1) Teach at the university (I am much more ...
3
votes
1answer
459 views
Professor doesn't respond to notice of inability to take a test in his class
I currently have a concussion that has hindered my ability to do work or study. I went to the doctor and got it diagnosed (got a medical note and all that). I have a midterm tomorrow, and I emailed my ...
3
votes
4answers
336 views
Teaching advanced courses in a specialized area of math [closed]
Today mathematics (and probably also other sciences) became very specialized: every researcher works in their own narrow field which usually hardly interacts with fields of other colleagues, even on ...
3
votes
2answers
91 views
Self studied courses during my PhD. How to fill the relevant courses section in the CV?
My PhD thesis is on numerical modeling using finite element methods and non-linear continuum mechanics. My university did not offer these courses during the first two years of my PhD. So, I had to ...
23
votes
6answers
7k views
What should I consider when deciding whether to delay an exam?
I believe I may have scheduled an exam too early, and I am considering delaying it by a day or two. The material that I would cover fits in fairly well with the earlier material, and not as well with ...
1
vote
1answer
253 views
Studying recreational math professionally?
Are there professors who specialize in recreational types of math problems, or is my best bet to be a high school teacher and do recreational math in my free time?
3
votes
4answers
259 views
Taking vacations days in the middle of a semester [closed]
Context: I am an assistant professor at a small institution in the US.
Question: My significant other has the opportunity through work to travel to an exotic location over a long weekend in February, ...
33
votes
6answers
7k views
Is it safe for a student to give negative feedback in student evaluations? [closed]
It's common for students to be asked for their evaluations of a teacher/course at the end of the semester. Is it safe for the student to give negative feedback? After all, even if the lecturer will ...
4
votes
5answers
371 views
Should I admit students who are waitlisted for my class?
As an instructor at a large university, you will sooner or later have a waitlist for your class. Is it better (for you) to admit those students into your class or do you better keep the enrollment ...
0
votes
1answer
81 views
Infusing Graduate Studies with High Quality video content [closed]
Recently there has been a revolution in graphics technologies, which can aid in explaining (math and other) concepts visually to people (for example, the high quality content produced by 3Blue1Brown ...
73
votes
5answers
8k views
Handling Disruptive Student on the Autism Spectrum
I have a student who's on the autistic spectrum. He exhibits several disruptive behaviors in class, such as
Inability to moderate his volume/interjections: he will shout out questions and comments ...
6
votes
3answers
285 views
I had performed mediocre in my core subjects during my PhD, is it justified for me to think about a future in academia?
I am a final year PhD in mechanical engineering. I did average/below average in my core courses, during my undergraduate, and PhD coursework. My research area involves using finite element and volume ...
1
vote
2answers
251 views
Teaching Fellow vs. Postdoc
I would like to continue with my academic path but, the last year, I've been conducting mainly research activity with no teaching assignments. I would like to build up my portfolio to gain some ...
-1
votes
1answer
182 views
Reasonable sanction [closed]
A lecturer with more than 10 years of experience and proven record of excellence in both teaching and academic service failed to complete his teaching self-assessment. In general, the teaching ...
3
votes
4answers
177 views
Coming up with an activity to replace a quiz
I will be teaching my first Calculus I class this fall (USA) and 5 percent of the grading is discretionary. Other sections are doing three quizzes over the course of the semester, with each taking ...
33
votes
8answers
8k views
Is TA-ing worth the opportunity cost?
If you already have funding, is TA-ing (i.e. being a teaching assistant) worth the opportunity cost of doing more research?
What are the relevant considerations?
I've always heard that focusing on ...
2
votes
1answer
104 views
UK Higher Education Academic Teaching Qualification
I have come across a few questions similar to the following during academic job application process at UK HEIs. I think I understand and I am aware of the choices from 2 to 10. However, option 1 ...
5
votes
2answers
568 views
Fired from TA position without cause/notice, what to do next? [closed]
I am a post-doc in the USA and was a teaching assistant in the same university. During my TA appointment, I attended a one-week course outside the city. Prior to leaving, I got permission from the ...
6
votes
1answer
242 views
Is it better to lecture with a board or a document camera?
I will be teaching my first class this fall. The course will be an undergraduate engineering course, so there will be some derivations and other math.
I am trying to decide if I should present with a ...
58
votes
7answers
18k views
What do I do when a student working in my lab “ghosts” me?
I am in my first PhD year and have some teaching duties -- assisting my supervisor with his lectures and also advising students. At the beginning of the semester, a student started working on his ...
2
votes
2answers
113 views
Transition from university teaching career to curricular assessment type jobs?
I'm curious if anybody here has ever transitioned from a teaching-strong academic career to a curriculum assessment type job (in calculus, for example)? If so, what would you be able to say about that?...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
Conducting exams in which a computer (but no internet) is available
In my institution, we have various lab exams in which part of the exam is completing a programming task, and a computer is available to each student for this purpose.
There are there various ways to ...
1
vote
0answers
60 views
Attributing Teaching Material Under GPL
I teach a course where my teaching materials are a combination of 1: original material, 2: material from colleagues, and 3: material provided by the textbook. My colleagues have given me permission to ...
4
votes
2answers
350 views
What “soft-skills” does one need to succeed as a mathematician?
My question is about "soft-skills", i.e. knowing how to handle Latex, giving a speech or giving a lecture, or other knowledge that could be useful for a career in mathematics.
Skills that (all) ...
1
vote
1answer
122 views
Semi-academic job: techniques to apply
I am soon to complete a PhD and am quite interested in teaching roles. I have been doing some ad hoc teaching as a lecturer in my university, and quite enjoyed it. I apparently have done a pretty ...
30
votes
13answers
17k views
Why do some professors with PhDs leave their professorships to teach high school?
I can surmise that some of them mightn't have gotten tenure and needed to find another job, but wouldn't these former professors be bored teaching the same (relatively basal) material yearly?
Let me ...
-4
votes
5answers
315 views
Ethics of trying to trick/sabotage students into failure [closed]
Once in a while, I will hear stories (usually of the "friend of a friend" type) about some bold instructor who took some specific action in order to entrap or trick their students into poor academic (...
2
votes
3answers
360 views
Can one acquire “tenure” through teaching or being something like a Research Associate at a university lab?
This question is specific to the United States.
Can one acquire something like "tenure" if either
(1) their primary / only responsibility is teaching undergraduate courses
and / or
(2) they work ...
12
votes
3answers
665 views
How can I make sure I (a white male teaching math) am sensitive to “underprivileged” students in my class?
I teach math classes and I was speaking with the assistant chair of my department about a student who claimed that I was rude and put my students down when lecturing. (I'm a Ph.D. student.) This ...
1
vote
1answer
154 views
How to deal with radically different prerequisite preparation?
Let's say there is a core sequence of classes for an undergraduate STEM program, starting with what we'll call STEM 101 and STEM 102. The STEM 101 course is predominantly taught by two instructors: ...
11
votes
5answers
5k views
Course development: can I pay someone to make slides for the course?
I am asked to start from scratch and develop a new under-graduate course this fall. I still have about 2.5 months left but since there are tons of research commitments ahead, I am basically a bit ...
3
votes
2answers
164 views
How to set high class expectations and still maintain a good class relationship
I usually have a good instructor-class relationship, but I am also an admittedly easy instructor - in previous classes my assessments have been on the easy side of fair. This term I have set very ...
150
votes
14answers
21k views
Teaching a class likely meant to inflate the GPA of student athletes
Premise
My department recently finalized the faculty teaching assignments for the Fall 2019 semester (starts at the end of August 2019). As these assignments were being discussed a few weeks ago, my ...
2
votes
2answers
406 views
Is there any real demonstrated benefit to the Dutch break out of the academic year?
Dutch universities have an arguably peculiar academic calendar: each semester breaks down in two blocks (actually 3, but only 2 are teaching blocks) so 4 blocks in total. Each full course is block-...
5
votes
3answers
471 views
Why are we not teaching university student how to learn/study? [closed]
Question is simple:
Why are we not teaching university students how to learn/study ?
Motivation:
I've seen many university students who does not know how to study something, or learn something by ...
2
votes
1answer
148 views
How to prepare effectively for teaching a graduate course?
Next year, I will be teaching a graduate-level course about an advanced topic for the first time (in a West European university, in science). I'm a lecturer and this is the first time I will teach ...
22
votes
3answers
4k views
How to teach an undergraduate course without having taken that course formally before?
I am in the final year of my PhD. My work was on using Finite element method to study tribology. It was completely modeling based. I developed various models and have gained quite expertise in ...
0
votes
0answers
66 views
Building community in a college classroom
I am a TA for a class designed to bring a group of about 25 students together as a cohort starting their freshman year of college. They are in the same department so they will be mostly taking similar ...
0
votes
1answer
146 views
how to develop a new course as a new Assistant Professor
I am writing to inquire some experiences/advices on developing a new course on my first semester (this fall) as an assistant professor in computer science.
At this moment I am aware of the course ...
4
votes
6answers
796 views
How to regrade an exam that was too difficult?
Our multiple choice exam was clearly too difficult.
N questions.
N + 10 total duration (in minutes).
All questions have the same value (100 / N).
Wrong answers have a penalty of 25% (25 / N).
Only ...
7
votes
1answer
255 views
Buying out of teaching duties vs. all duties using grant money
My university (in Europe) is currently reconsidering its policy regarding professors (assistant through full) buying out of certain duties using funds from research grants. The new proposal is that ...
4
votes
4answers
332 views
How to address a class about cheating
An undergraduate course that I teach has roughly 50 first-year students, and without trying I noticed several egregious examples of cheating, both on assignments and on a recent midterm exam. Given ...
