As scientists, one would think that we would approach all areas of our careers using the same evidence-based decision making that we use in our research. However, this is often not the case when it comes to teaching our college level science classes.\u00a0 Most new faculty have little training in best practices of effective instruction, and are left to \u201csink or swim\u201d in their first teaching assignments. Beginning instructors make instructional decisions by instinct and\/or structure courses in the ways that they themselves were taught, regardless of the effectiveness of those methods. Fortunately for me, I had a strong background in science pedagogy and lots of teaching experience when I began my first years as an Assistant Professor.\u00a0 However, even that didn\u2019t fully prepare me for the challenges I faced in my first semester of the job, as a PhD-level ecologist teaching 155 students in Introductory (cellular) Biology! The first day of that course, I was so nervous that I couldn\u2019t even look up at the class; everything I knew about teaching flew out the window as I entered a primal survival mode to get through the semester. However, over time my pedagogical training allowed me to make significant and rapid improvements in my instruction, resulting in a much better experience for students, and consequently for myself.<\/p>\n
I decided to target this Early Career blog post on teaching tips for new instructors, because I remember well how difficult it is. For many of us working at comprehensive universities or primarily undergraduate institutions, teaching comprises the bulk of our job.\u00a0 Whether tenure track or adjunct, we all face many of the same challenges!\u00a0 The advice I am offering is based on a mixture of my personal experiences and classical pedagogical research. \u00a0I have included resources for further reading at the end.<\/p>\n
Very few people are excellent instructors the first time through a new course, especially when there are multiple new courses simultaneously plus setting up a new research lab.\u00a0 Aim simply for survival the first time through, and forgive yourself for not being perfect.\u00a0 But after that, it will pay off immensely to develop a basic understanding of how people learn and how knowledge of learners and learning can be applied in your own classroom. Adopting just a few \u201cbest practices\u201d can immensely alter students\u2019 intrinsic motivation, abilities to comprehend course materials, and their feelings about the experience in your class. It will also affect your own enjoyment of the teaching portion of your job when you see your efforts pay off.<\/p>\n
When mentoring both new and seasoned faculty in improving their teaching I recommend targeting only 1-3 major objectives for improvement each time through a course.<\/em> \u00a0Examples of worthy objectives might include things like:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Prioritize organization in order to appear competent<\/strong><\/p>\n Given my statements in the previous paragraph, you might think my next recommendation would be all about pedagogy, but it\u2019s not.\u00a0 Instead it is, in addition to surviving your first time through your courses, to attempt to do without descending into utter chaos as the semester progresses.<\/p>\n The first step, whether your courses are lectures, labs, or seminars is to have a well-planned topic schedule with dates and exams indicated. Seek other instructors\u2019 syllabi and schedules for similar courses online or through emailing the individuals \u2013 the worst someone can do is ignore you or refuse to share their materials, and most people are happy to help. \u00a0You won\u2019t end up with your topics and subtopics in just the right order the first time through, and that\u2019s ok. Frankly, your best efforts in detailed planning will seem to fly out the window as the natural entropy of the semester ensues and \u201ccovering\u201d what you perceived as all the necessary minutia within each topic takes longer than you thought. I have observed instructors who then make the mistake of sending out updated lecture schedules every few weeks, with topics and test dates getting shuffled around multiple times. (I have personally been guilty of this, so I am not judging!) What affect does this have on students? They perceive your course as disorganized, unpredictable, and chaotic; they can never look ahead on the schedule to read in advance and plan their studying in the ways we all wish that they would.\u00a0 Unless you have such a great personality that students are charmed into forgiveness of your other foibles, disorganization and chaos is bound to lead to disgruntled students.<\/p>\n What beginning teachers don\u2019t realize is that, from an outside perspective (e.g. a student or peer-reviewer), the most important factors in perceiving you as a competent teacher are not how much content you covered or whether you used the latest technological gizmos. Rather, perceptions of you as a teacher will primarily be based on whether you appear organized, have positive interpersonal interactions with students, and project a sense of \u201cwith-it-ness<\/u>\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Teachers who do these things elicit others\u2019 confidence in their abilities and are perceived as being effective, even if they have no idea what they are actually doing!\u00a0 (Note that this is different from *actually* being a successful, effective instructor!)<\/p>\n Regardless of how dissatisfied you are with your published schedule once you get moving, try to force yourself to adhere to your planned timeline or only allow yourself one schedule revision through the semester.\u00a0 For example, if you only scheduled one class session for predator\/prey interactions, but realize during preparation that you really needed more, just go with the flow.\u00a0 For now, boil it down to what students really need to know for this one class. Then immediately make detailed notes on your schedule so you remember to expand time for that topic next year.\u00a0 This will not adversely affect students \u2014 different instructors of the same courses always allocate different relative proportions of their courses to the material, anyway. However, it will positively affect your teaching reviews because students will know that your published topic and exam schedule is meaningful and predictable.<\/p>\n Packing in tons of vocabulary, definitions, and factual information to cover in lectures creates problems for both the instructor and the students.\u00a0 Beginning instructors spend a lot of time \u201ccramming\u201d before class in the same way that students cram before their exams, because teaching requires a whole different level of understanding of the material than what you had as a student in your own classes. Full preparation of traditional PowerPoint lecture-style slides can take an entire day or more per class. Lack of comfort with the immense amounts of material can lead to reading off slides, which is one of the biggest complaints about new instructors. We pack our lectures full because we think students absolutely need to know all this content to move on to the next stage, but can we ever actually prepare students with all the relevant content they need to know for the future in one class? Of course not!<\/p>\n The physical representations of learning from our instruction are webs of neural networks in students\u2019 brains, also known by psychologists as \u201cschema\u201d (schemata plural).\u00a0 The neural networks for our class topics, created upon first exposure and reinforced while studying, are usually pretty fragile. Connections are pruned away or reinforced over time, making schema harder and harder to access if they are not repeatedly used.\u00a0 Therefore, there is a limited amount of detailed content a student can retain from any one class, especially when we \u201ccover\u201d material and then quickly move on.<\/p>\n For instructors who are beyond just surviving the \u201cnew prep\u201d rollercoaster, consider that is possible to move beyond this traditional version of college curricula that are a mile wide and an inch deep, even in an intro level course.\u00a0 To create robust<\/em> neural networks for a particular subject rather than fragile, temporary frameworks, you should consider moving toward curriculum and instruction that 1) focuses on patterns and processes rather than memorizing definitions and isolated facts, 2) provides opportunities for repeated and varied interactions with the subject, 3) illustrates how the concepts are applied in real life\/research, and 5) facilitates students\u2019 development of connections\/relationships between the new knowledge and schema that already exist in their minds. The more connections there are, the less fragile are the cognitive schema!<\/p>\n Beginning teachers often excitedly master new technological tools, like classroom response systems, with the goal of making their classes more interactive. The motivations behind adopting educational technology (e.g. i<\/em>clickers) are very noble, and such systems are very effective at supplementing instruction and collecting informative student data.\u00a0 However, should they be a priority for a beginning teacher who has so many things to master?\u00a0 Often times when you are in survival mode, the technology sits gathering dust as there is no time to plan questions.\u00a0 I personally think it is better to first focus on mastering the class material and teaching it well before attempting to adopt new educational technology.\u00a0 If you are good at being spontaneous, you can still plan for an interactive classroom experience without the technology by asking questions to the class as they come up, and then using wait-time <\/em>to increase the number of student responses.\u00a0 Classic research in education shows that most instructors wait less than 1 second after asking a question before calling on someone to answer. Increasing this \u201cinstructor silence\u201d to 3-5 seconds provides opportunities for more students to mentally process the question and formulate a response. If time is short, you can also take a simple poll, asking students to raise hands or use thumbs up\/thumbs down to show which responses they agree with.<\/p>\n Once you have some teaching experience and have a better grasp of the material, you might be ready to effectively incorporate new educational technology or instructional strategies to improve your instruction and assessment.\u00a0 There are too many to treat fully in this blog, but here are some very poignant and effective ones to consider:<\/p>\n Formally assessing students and assigning grades is usually the most dreaded part of our jobs! However, it is also very important, and there are plenty of ways to make it easier your first couple times through. Below are some suggestions:<\/p>\n This is a long blog post, but it barely skims the surface of tips and tricks for being a successful instructor. I hope you have found something useful!\u00a0 I highly encourage you to \u201cGoogle\u201d some of the mentioned techniques to find further reading and information about how to use them most effectively!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Journal of College Science Teaching articles<\/p>\n Handbook on Teaching Undergraduate Science Courses: A Survival Training Manual (1999) <\/em>by G.E. Uno<\/p>\n College Science Teachers Guide to Assessment<\/em> (2009) by Lord et al.<\/p>\n Teaching Tips: Innovations in Undergraduate Science Instruction<\/em> (2004) Edited by Druger et al.<\/p>\n Reform in Undergraduate Science Instruction<\/em>. (2004) Edited by Sunal et al.<\/p>\n Innovative Techniques for Large-Group Instruction<\/em> (2002) \u2013 An NSTA Press Journals Collection<\/p>\n Handbook of College Science Teaching<\/em> (2006) Edited by Mintzes and Leonard<\/p>\n Dr. Jennifer Geib is Associate Professor of Biology and Science Education at Appalachian State University and directs the undergraduate Biology Teacher Education program. Her teaching assignments include everything from Science Teaching Methods, to Population Ecology, and The Meaning and Nature of Science. Her research focuses on the ecology, evolution, and behavior of pollination mutualisms.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As scientists, one would think that we would approach all areas of our careers using the same evidence-based decision making that we use in our research. 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When it comes to content, less is more.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
You can have an interactive classroom without technology<\/strong><\/h3>\n
A few research-based strategies<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Assessment<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Suggested resources for further reading:<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n
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