APPROACH TEACHING USING RESEARCH SKILLS: A GUIDE FOR NEW FACULTY

摘要

New faculty can take the mindset they already have developed for doing technical research and adapt it for teaching. Scenario: You've trained for years in your technical area and are well prepared to do technical research. During your interview for a tenure-track faculty position, you have an interview with an associate dean—me. I've read your impressive 30-page research plan as well as your one-page teaching plan, half of which lists the courses you can teach. After I ask and you explain how you developed your research plan, I ask how you developed your teaching plan. Your answer is much shorter and indicates you are not well-informed. Then, I walk over to my bookshelf, bring back various journals and classic books in engineering education, and ask "why haven't you included any references from these journals or from these books for your teaching plan in the way you have for your research plan? This is the literature for this field." You stammer, thinking that this is a reasonable question and wonder why you have not even thought to do this. But then I explain that your response is the norm and this creates, hopefully, a teachable moment. You eagerly listen and write things down on a notepad.