So You're a New Teacher -What Now?

摘要

Teaching is not my regular job. Or at least it wasn't. One of the wonderful opportunities in the Army is the chance to get selected as a rotating faculty member at The United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point. When I was accepted, I was overjoyed. With the appointment as an instructor at USMA came a fully funded masters degree and the opportunity to present structural steel design to undergraduate cadets. But somewhere between graduate school and West Point, I realized I would not be presenting, rather I would be teaching. I had plenty of experience speaking in front of groups, giving presentations, and briefing military superiors, but now I would be teaching. Teaching is something different. Teaching sparks learning where a brief or presentation imparts information, and this is a fundamental difference. While I knew I could present, I became anxious because I was not confident I could teach. Upon looking back over my first semester, I realize there were two things that not only prepared me to teach but also improved my teaching skills more quickly than I thought possible. First, I got some formal teacher training at USMA. Second, I applied this formal training and my previous Army experience to improve my teaching throughout my first semester. Specifically, I focused on planning and preparing each class, turning each class into a performance, and using administrative tasks as teaching opportunities. By using these improvement strategies, I have achieved good results for my first semester and have formed a solid base to continue my improvement for the rest of my assignment as an instructor. My goal is to provide you with my perspective on how to form a plan to improve your teaching no matter how new you are to the profession.