Questions tagged [teaching]
This tag is related to the role and duties of a teacher, an academic instructor, tutor or a teaching assistant.
4
votes
2answers
804 views
Changing from 100% research to 20% teaching and 80% research: Seems like a raw deal, would you do it? [closed]
I'm a named researcher (but basically a Postdoc) on a funded project in the UK which pays my salary. I've got a good CV and currently do 4 hours of teaching per year.
The principal investigator (PI) ...
48
votes
10answers
13k views
What to tell students who want to know how to succeed in your class
Setting is math in the US.
It's quite common for a student who is not doing super well or is worried that they might not be to approach me and ask how they should be studying/what they should be ...
-3
votes
3answers
728 views
Has the student responsibility for not cheating?
If a student is cheating, he can be caught or not caught.
If he is caught, it's not obvious what to do.
There are options with different strategies:
The students are themselves responsible for not ...
0
votes
2answers
184 views
Is there a full-time job with variety and academic rigor but also 2+ months annual vacation? (don't care if vacation is unpaid) [closed]
I've had one full time job in my life. It was a teaching job and I got about 2.5 weeks of annual vacation. I had a great time my first year, learned a lot, and I think I improved quite a bit as a ...
-2
votes
1answer
185 views
Forgot to lock bathroom door, teacher saw me with my pants down [closed]
As the title says, this happened in a college environment. For some unknown reason, I forgot to lock the bathroom stall's door. He saw that the door wasn't locked, so he opened the door, saw me and my ...
2
votes
3answers
132 views
A free tool that is capable of selecting questions from a pool and shuffle them randomly? [closed]
I will be conducting exams, and I need a tool that can let me shuffle and select random , small questions from a pre-defined question pool. My questions are typically matched and complete.
It would ...
55
votes
10answers
14k views
Asking a professor to teach better
In my mathematics program, one of the qual prep courses is being taught by a professor who, put bluntly, is not putting in the effort.
He is essentially reading from the book (which I don’t ...
2
votes
4answers
219 views
What is an acceptable failure rate in an entry level programming course? [closed]
I'm teaching an entry level programming course at a local college. About 2/3 of the class is getting a b or higher. The last 1/3 are getting f's. I attribute most of the f's to failure to do ...
2
votes
1answer
158 views
Can a teacher to refuse to follow their late work policy? [closed]
My teacher handed out a syllabus at the beginning of the year, claiming to have a late work policy where he only reduces the max percent you can get on an assignment for every day it's late. The ...
0
votes
3answers
367 views
Failing students: Avoidable or not? [closed]
One college lecturer often does not care about failing his students, another does. Say we are talking about a Calculus I class.
A. One fails students because they simply do not achieve the minimum ...
0
votes
2answers
83 views
What is the term for intended consequences of an activity other than intended learning outcomes?
Question might be a bit strange. I am looking at a series of activities that we run every year. These activities have some intended learning outcomes (ILOs), but these outcomes are stated in terms ...
0
votes
2answers
290 views
What is the best way to see if students understood?
I am teaching classes of a size of 20-25 persons.
During a class, what is the best way to get feedback from students? Concretely, I would want to get the following questions answered every ~15-20 ...
6
votes
4answers
299 views
How widespread is the use of “last author = teacher” on student papers?
In our lab (at Nankai University, in China), students often write papers where they are first author. However, we use a convention where the last author signifies the student's teacher. I feel that ...
2
votes
1answer
51 views
How to teach law to multinational classes?
I am professor in an internationally oriented university, meaning it was created to have students from half a dozen different countries. It doesn't offer any law-related degree, but some degrees do ...
3
votes
2answers
89 views
Conflict of interest/collusion in academic scenario
I know somebody, let’s call him Joe, who had been a good student. Being a good student, other students asked help from him to understand the class materials. In the meantime, our university started ...
2
votes
2answers
103 views
As an instructor can I use previous work history as examples?
I teach computer science (USA - graduate level). I am teaching a software design course, and for a lecture I am to give on software anti-patterns I would like to use a real world example from an ...
0
votes
1answer
50 views
How to get a tutoring position in Melbourne, Australia?
I'm starting my PhD in neuroscience next month at the University of Melbourne and I've been told that graduate research students often work part time as tutors. I've been trying to find this ...
21
votes
5answers
2k views
Is the “okay” hand gesture now unacceptable to use in class? [closed]
While teaching a class last week, I made the widely-recognized hand gesture (an open circle with the thumb and index finger, with the other 3 fingers loosely or sharphy extended... I'm not sure ...
12
votes
6answers
5k views
Preventing Verbatim Answers that Match Examples?
When teaching students (especially in code, but this can apply to any subject), how do you prevent near verbatim answers that match your examples?
For example, I tell students how to find a document ...
2
votes
2answers
165 views
Projects funded by German Research Foundation---teaching duties
I am interested if teaching is a part of duties for people employed on the positions funded by the German Research Foundation (SFBs in particular). To the best of my knowledge, these are pure research ...
2
votes
3answers
201 views
I'm an accomplished person in my field, but don't have any degree. Would I be able to be a teacher or substitute? [closed]
As far as I'm aware, the base requirement to be a teacher or substitute requires a degree. However in my case, I've been working in my career field for going on 10 years. I'm wondering if it's ...
146
votes
13answers
32k views
Grades are too high for the department - what should I do?
I recently taught an undergraduate seminar course, in which each student has to read a research paper, summarize it and present it to the class. In the first lesson I explained to the students the ...
6
votes
2answers
190 views
Students plagiarising assignments: What level is worth the effort of pursuing?
As a tutor marking assignments, I regularly come across cases of plagiarism. As someone who put a lot of effort into my coursework studies it really offends me to see what students think they can (and ...
2
votes
3answers
188 views
How to minimize cheating with open source assignments?
For my computer science programming-based course, I'd like to:
1) host my course and assignments (without solutions) open and free to all (e.g., as public GitHub repos)
but this seems at odds with ...
4
votes
1answer
410 views
Is it fair to punish the student for not knowing what's in the course? [duplicate]
A number of questions (e. g., this one or that one) discuss the situations where the student is punished after invoking, in the exam context, knowledge that's outside the scope of the course. This ...
1
vote
1answer
107 views
For each of these cases which is the designation that best describes my role in class
Since I've finished my PhD I've been asked to perform some teaching duties. These duties correspond roughly to the three cases I describe below briefly.
1) So in this one course I was responsible for ...
2
votes
1answer
48 views
experience/ability in teaching and securing external funds for getting professorship
I'm a postdoc in Engineering. I'm seeking for tenure-track professorship in research-oriented universities.
But most of the posts require 'demonstrated ability to secure external funds and teach ...
3
votes
2answers
204 views
Does adjunct teaching help a PhD application?
I burned out while pursing a PhD in mathematics but have a masters, and am currently pursuing a masters in philosophy with the hope that it may show continued interest in academia before I re-apply to ...
24
votes
6answers
4k views
Is it a good practice for teaching assistants to sit in the lectures?
Has anyone tried this technique and how has it worked out for you?
Essentially, there are several problems with doing teaching assistant work (TA),
You might not even be from the institution where ...
7
votes
3answers
938 views
Pros and Cons of assigning homework for large classes
In small classes (with <50 students) I have mostly had positive experience for assigning homework. The homework allows the students to better learn the concepts and to better prepare for the exams. ...
9
votes
1answer
405 views
Getting a teaching recommendation as a mathematics postdoc in the UK
I am a postdoc in mathematics in the UK. When my current position ends, I plan to apply for positions in the US (among other places). Most of these positions will require some teaching experience, ...
13
votes
2answers
484 views
Is it acceptable to look up a student on the Internet to find out whether I have a conflict of interest?
This is a follow-up to this question, which I ask due to debates arising in the comments. While I ask it in the first person to keep things simple, it is not based on a real experience of mine.
One ...
34
votes
3answers
7k views
Teaching the daughter of a lecturer, while being simultaneously enrolled in his course
I'm a student in a bachelor program at a local university, while I'm also a teacher (professional school) of apprenticeship students within the same sphere of study.
A few days ago I received the ...
7
votes
1answer
176 views
How to make clear tasks for students about resolving paradoxes?
Question
When creating questions for coursework, exams, and similar, I sometimes want to task students with explaining counter-intuitive results or dissolving paradoxes, as I consider this is a good ...
8
votes
4answers
1k views
How to implement flipped classroom for 18 y.o. kids?
I teach an introductory programming course at university where 99% of my students are 18-20 years old. They are used to the old and boring education system they know from high school, so they are not ...
5
votes
2answers
223 views
(Soft question?) Sharing knowledge to students, what are the limits?
I am an undergraduate lecturer. I have been bothered by this question lately.
I never and never want to claim that what I know, or even what I discover, is mine. Also, things that I discover, small ...
-4
votes
1answer
140 views
A guy with a degree in a different but related field gets a professorship [closed]
Suppose a guy gets a bachelor degree in English literature, gets his masters degree in Folklore, and a PhD in Education.
Of those three, in which discipline(s) (most probably) would he be allowed do ...
1
vote
2answers
93 views
How do I create a useful learning objective? [closed]
I am preparing a lesson plan and I unable to write objective of this session in a correct way.
My question is how do we state objectives of sessions such as:
1- Avoiding common mistakes in Email
2- ...
8
votes
3answers
418 views
How to feel less guilt about teaching?
I just got a permanent position. Hooray!
My question is the opposite of this one (that popped out as a suggestion from this site): How to care less about teaching?
During my PhD studies I TAed a ...
23
votes
5answers
3k views
How to establish a presence at a community college that might lead to adjuncting
I'm an engineer with a M.S. and 20+ years of industry experience. I always wanted to teach but I left grad school for industry to help pay the bills. I have no regrets, but I do have a very strong ...
1
vote
1answer
171 views
One year teaching in India [closed]
After a short-term period working as a postdoc (same institution where I got my PhD), and I felt the need for a change and spent the last few months teaching in Italy, where I'm from. I really ...
2
votes
2answers
159 views
How to advertise the grad course that you teach?
I accepted an offer to teach a graduate course at the university, as an adjunct professor. This program has a minimum threshold for number of students signed up. In other words if not enough students ...
31
votes
8answers
7k views
What should I do when a former student tells me about misconduct from one of their current TAs?
While I was a TA for an undergraduate CS course, I built up a good teaching relationship with a student who was struggling. By the end of the course, she had turned things around and was performing ...
0
votes
0answers
99 views
Difference between Dutch and UK “Associate Professor”
What are the requirements for to become an Associate Professor in the Dutch system? And to what extent are they different from the British one? For example, in the British system, I believe Associate ...
28
votes
7answers
6k views
Should I mention my university name when publishing a paper if I'm tenured teacher but not researcher?
I'm teacher in a French university (I don't know if the right english term is 'tenured', I mean I'm hired permanently in this university, not temporarily), but I don't have any research role and I'm ...
3
votes
2answers
304 views
How would you give your students a tournament as assessment?
I am currently teaching calculus and I thought it would be a good idea to do some kind of limit (and later derivative/integral) calculation tournament. The thing is... The students only seem to give ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
PhD salary and teaching assistantships in German-speaking countries
I am currently searching for a master and then a PhD in Finance/Quantitative Finance. Since I have a certificate in German Language, I could choose German-speaking countries (Switzerland, Germany, and ...
19
votes
4answers
5k views
Ethics of making students purchase lecture notes
I have a professor who has published his lecture notes in the form of a book. The only way to get access to his lecture notes is to purchase them from an off-campus bookstore. To me, this seems like a ...
4
votes
1answer
123 views
strategies for sharing teaching information with universities I don't personally have contacts with
A large part of my job is the creation of new teaching materials and methods. I enjoy it, but I'm noticing a few things:
Some international students struggle with my material, not because of the ...
2
votes
1answer
102 views
Creating a reading group with one of my students
I am currently a PhD student (on a teaching scholarship) at a UK university. A part-time MSc student in one of my classes has asked me for some advice on how they can prepare for their courses next ...
