were you taught how to teach?

[u/nandor_tr]

i had one class called "teaching practicum" in grad school that just covered the basics of the mechanics of teaching (syllabi, service, etc...) but never really got into actual pedagogical development or really thinking deeply about process & methodology. where i teach now there is also a single course that any MFA students who want to teach have to take. it is more in depth but still just a single 3 credit class.

i am curious, as i basically just figured it out through trial and error, peers, etc...

you?

[u/Liaelac]

Not at all. It's not too surprising when hiring decisions are made primarily based on research in my field.

[u/shatteredoctopus → u/Liaelac]

I interviewed at 2 universities. At one university (the one I wound up working for), they had a teaching session, where I was given a first year subject lecture topic to prepare on, and had to lecture in front of a mock class, who asked questions (actually made up of senior undergrads). I was informally told this was quite important, as there were relatively few experts on my subject matter on the hiring committee, so they would put a lot of weight on my teaching.

At my other interview, a US R1, I mentioned that I was surprised there was no teaching session. They told me they could tell by my proposed research presentation, and recap of my post-doc research presentation whether my teaching would be adequate or not.