Graduate Students as Independent Instructors: Seven Things to Know about Teaching Your Own Course while in Graduate School

Abstract

Despite being responsible for a large percentage of undergraduate instruction, graduate students often receive little preparation for their first solo teaching assignments (J. D. Nyquist et al., Change 31 (3): 18, 1999). Furthermore, the existing literature on pedagogy fails to address the unique challenges faced by graduate students who are asked to serve as course instructors rather than teaching assistants. This article presents seven pieces of advice intended to better prepare the predoctoral graduate student to assume the role of the professor before assuming the title. By understanding the attitudes of undergraduate students toward graduate instructors, preparing in advance to handle the mistakes that novice teachers often make, and recognizing the correlation between outward confidence and student perceptions of instructor quality, graduate students can derive the most benefit from a stressful and time-consuming assignment. Most important, graduate instructors can learn to effectively manage the time spent on teaching duties to ensure that other responsibilities such as coursework, qualifying exams, and dissertation research do not suffer.

How graduate students are supported in their teaching

“…To address this gap, we examined the literature on graduate student development through the lens of a new framework that identifies sources of support at Introduction Graduate students' development occurs within the context of international higher education that is experiencing on-going shifts in institutional priorities, teaching practice, and graduate student demographics that place increasing demands on supports for teaching development. With growing concerns about quality assurance (Smith, 2005) and accountability (Ryan and Fraser, 2010), there is increasing pressure for demonstrable improvements in university teaching, at a time when graduate students teach a sizeable number of the courses (Barrington, 2001;Burmila, 2010;Kift, 2003;Muzaka, 2009;Park, 2004;Salim, 2011). What is considered good teaching is also shifting: from conceiving of teaching as instructor centered to a practice that is student-or learning centered (Åkerlind, 2003;Barr and Tagg, 1995;Degago and Kaino, 2015;McCabe and O'Connor, 2014;Samuelowicz and Bain, 1992) and focussed on facilitative learning rather than on lecturing (Gow and Kember, 1993;Griffiths et al, 2007).…”

Redistricting in the Classroom: A Module for Inductive Learning

“…Instructors have an especially important obligation in American politics courses to encourage the development of students as active citizens in American democracy who can think critically about political issues and processes (Westheimer and Kahne 2004). Other than the pedagogical advantages of hands-on learning, activities that involve participation by students rather than relying on instructor-focused lectures are enjoyable for students and instructors, making class time more gratifying for both (Baum 2002; Burmila 2010). The activities we describe herein are particularly attractive for an undergraduate class because they require few startup instructions and are sufficiently structured so that the risk of derailment due to unexpected student behavior is minimal.…”