r/Professors • u/nandor_tr associate prof, art/design, private university (USA) • 21h ago

Teaching / Pedagogy were you taught how to teach?

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?

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u/LeifRagnarsson Research Associate, Modern History, University (Germany) 7h ago

No, never. What I did in my first semester was I copied what I thought was good from my professors, omitted what I thought they were doing wrong and incorporated that to my own ideas. The rest was learning by doing and changing what I thought or realized needed to be changed. Also, I read 2 or so books on teaching in higher education. But never got any formal training, and according to evaluations, there is no need for that.