Questions tagged [teaching]
This tag is related to the role and duties of a teacher, an academic instructor, tutor or a teaching assistant.
1,029
questions
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0answers
18 views
Hourly Workload for 9 Credits
I am a Lecturer of Physics in the Department of Physics at a university. Last semester, I taught 9 hours/week which are divided into 3 hours/week for graduate teaching and 6 hours/week for ...
1
vote
1answer
59 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?...
7
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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
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0answers
55 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
303 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
111 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 ...
29
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
276 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
353 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
625 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
147 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
148 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 ...
149
votes
14answers
20k 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
397 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
457 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
130 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
64 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
132 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
722 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
246 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
304 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 ...
2
votes
1answer
51 views
Software to help planning a course
I’m teaching a few classes next semester and feel scattered. Can you recommend some software to help me plan out a course so on each day I can see what topic I’m teaching, activities planned, homework ...
37
votes
5answers
12k views
I caught several of my students plagiarizing. Could it be my fault as a teacher?
I have been teaching for three years now. This year, for the first time, I caught multiple students in a class (out of 50) either handing in the task of a colleague or copying the majority of someones ...
1
vote
2answers
344 views
strategy of a maths/science chalk talk interview
1.Candidate is to teach 1 out of several topics given. Should there not be any preferrential topic to be taught in the eye of the interviewers? Is there any disadvantage not to choose the hardest ...
56
votes
16answers
10k views
As an international instructor, should I openly talk about my accent?
I'm an international, teaching at an American university, and I have an accent, which can be strong at times. I'm working hard at it, have always been, but still, the accent is there.
This has never ...
1
vote
1answer
110 views
What are the typical questions students are requested to respond during a teaching demonstration they attend during a faculty interview? [closed]
Disclaimer: There are other questions asking for general advice on a teaching demonstration during faculty interviews. My inquiry is more specific:
In the US, some colleges, which have a heavy focus ...
6
votes
1answer
159 views
Is there a known relation between course pass rate and student feedback?
I analysed the relation between the feedback scores of my courses given by students against the average grades of the students in these courses. I found a moderate correlation (Pearson r) of 0.595. i....
12
votes
4answers
1k views
Tips to organize LaTeX presentations for a semester
I am giving my first course this fall and, as a LaTeX enthusiast, plan to prepare my slides in LaTeX for all the usual reasons.
For those of you who also do this, I wonder what resources you use to ...
1
vote
1answer
83 views
What are the standards/expectations from a teaching postdoc contract?
Recently, I talked with a CS Professor regarding working in his lab as a postdoc. He said that he is interested in my CV/profile, but he can only give me a contract as a teaching staff until he gets ...
1
vote
1answer
98 views
Research on technology enhanced learning?
The discourse about teaching seems to be dominated recently by the idea of technology enhanced learning. I have been talking a lot with colleagues about that and there seems to be some kind of ...
5
votes
3answers
149 views
How to encourage students to answer their peers' questions
We have a forum in which students can ask questions about the course material, homework exercises, etc. Usually I answer all the questions. I want to encourage students to answer some questions too.
...
63
votes
13answers
15k views
Accidentally leaked the solution to an assignment, what to do now? (I'm the prof)
TL;DR; I accidentally made the solution of an assignment visible to some of my students. How can I now fairly address that problem?
A few weeks ago I set a programming assignment to be done using ...
1
vote
1answer
133 views
What are the differences between teaching in the quarter and semester system?
I am currently working as a junior faculty member at a university where we teach a 2:2 (2 fall, 2 spring) on the semester system. I would like to know the differences between this and teaching a 2:2:2 ...
2
votes
1answer
152 views
Student Assessment [closed]
I am an academic in physics, i.e. with no formal education in pedagogical methods and teaching yet.
I was reading this paper of Biggs What the Student Does: teaching for enhanced learning and ...
29
votes
6answers
8k views
Quoting Keynes in a lecture
I am teaching mathematical statistics and part of this is large sample theory. I would like to discuss some methods that do not focus on asymptotics and refer to J. M. Keynes quote
In the long run, ...
58
votes
12answers
9k views
Mimic lecturing on blackboard, facing audience
I teach mathematics at MSc and PhD levels. My preferred method of teaching is old-fashioned: talking and writing on the blackboard at the same time.
Why? Because it has many advantages:
Handwriting: ...
4
votes
1answer
282 views
Whether to strike? [closed]
I'm a graduate student teaching assistant; I run discussion sections. Our department has just initiated a strike. I'm half way through the last semester of my PhD. Do I show up and "work" and get paid ...
53
votes
6answers
11k views
How to deal with a cynical class?
I am dealing with this class that somehow became very cynical. We have constant complaints about the pace of the class, people asking literally the same questions over and over, blatant plagiarism, ...
3
votes
2answers
196 views
Criteria for a Pure Math teaching job at a university
I'm assuming that all good universities in Europe/North America have PhD as the minimum requirement for a teaching job. What I want to know is:
How much experience (research and teaching both) is ...
35
votes
12answers
15k views
I hate taking lectures, can I still survive in academia?
I'm 3rd Physics & Mathematics student, and I almost hate taking and attending lectures; it is not because what is taught, I just don't like sitting in uncomfortable chairs with a lot of people ...
64
votes
8answers
26k views
An undergraduate said they may hire a freelancer to do their work for them. What should I do?
I, a graduate student, have started tutoring undergraduates in computer science at my university to help make ends meet. One student who inquired about my services turned me down upon hearing my rates ...
1
vote
1answer
300 views
exam/teaching culture, possible abusive supervisor, research gatekeeping
Apologies for the length, I don't know how to make this shorter. I also don't know where else to turn for advice. :(
I've recently started an MA in what promises to be a brand new humanities ...
0
votes
1answer
85 views
Study design for best teaching methods - how to avoid overly specific results?
I would like to do a study with a class in which the students are split into two groups, A and B. They will each receive a tutorial on the same topic, but group A will get a different tutorial than ...
4
votes
2answers
250 views
Gamified course: how to deal with the massive amount of grading needed without using specific software?
I've been trying to give gamification a go for a while, but I'm struggling on how exactly to implement it.
I teach an introduction to programming course, and as I'm part of a team including a couple ...
2
votes
2answers
71 views
Teaching experience as a subcontractor for a university program
I work as an instructional staff at a local university. The program is marketed and hosted by the university and the certificates are granted by the university signed by the department dean as well. ...
1
vote
1answer
146 views
What should I do when teaching maths for unmotivated undergraduate students?
After completing my Phd in an area in pure Maths and going back to my country, I got a job as a math lecturer at a university, where maths is not the main subject for students there. Maths is like ...
56
votes
7answers
11k views
(How) can you teach a subject effectively for which you are a skeptic without biasing students?
I recently accepted a tenure-track position at a university and will be on a 1-1 load my first year. My first course I will teach, I will get to modify and alter based on my expertise.
In my second ...
8
votes
1answer
221 views
How should I plan my course schedule given that my wife is due to give birth during the semester?
I have been teaching for a few years at my university,
and have mostly gotten into the rhythm of teaching and doing research.
This semester, I am teaching two courses.
What is different this semester ...
