Juniors After Hours

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Junior Faculty Balancing Act: Teaching, Part I

My website poll of 96 junior faculty members has an unequivocal winner.

The poll asks, "What is the hardest part about being a junior faculty member?"

Over a third of the respondents chose "Teaching takes up so much time" as their response.

Exactly How Time Consuming is Teaching?

Surveys of how professors spend their time indicate that professors
as a group, from junior to full professors, spend 29-30 hours a week at
a minimum on activities related to teaching. Obviously, new faculty,
who tend to have a higher teaching load than do full professors, and
who are often teaching classes that they have never taught before,
probably spend more than 30 hours a week. At some colleges with more of
a teaching emphasis, it has been estimated that new professors may
spend 50-60 hours a week on teaching.

What Can You Do To Lighten Your Teaching Burden?

Robert Boice, the author of Advice to New Faculty Members, devotes
the first 100 pages of his book to teaching. His advice can be boiled
down to "moderation in all things." When it comes to teaching, there
are specific actions you can take. Here are some of his recommendations
that I believe are the easiest to implement.

1. Don't try to fit too much into each class

2. You don't have to know everything

3. Simplify and make things more clear

4. Allow pauses during class

5. Do the "hardest work before it seems like work"

Don't Try to Fit Too Much Into Each Class

Many new professors make the mistake of equating quantity with
quality. The truth is that it is easy to overwhelm and bore your
students. Do you want them walking out of your class with pages of poor
notes, not having taken in most of what you've said? Or do you want
them to leave energized, excited, and clear about your most important
points?

You Don't Have to Know Everything

Students are relieved and, ironically, will like and trust you more
if they find out that you're NOT perfect. Studies show that students
prefer hearing their professors reason things out. Showing the process
of your thinking is excellent modeling. You don't earn their respect by
being the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the world. You earn it
by respecting them. If you don't know the answer to something, model a
scholar's attitude of curiosity. Compliment them on the excellent
question, say you'll look into it and that you'll answer it in the next
class.

Simplify and Make Things More Clear

The information is often already in the assigned readings. If
classes function only as information dumps, students will be resentful.
On the other hand, if you can simplify, clarify and help them see the
information in a new way, you will be making the class time valuable to
them. Do you notice how this interacts with the idea of not fitting too
much into the class? In order to clarify and simplify, you can't
complicate things by forcing too much information into their heads.

Allow Pauses During Class

Racing through the material will leave you and the class breathless.
It's not only OK, it's preferable to let there be some spaces where you
collect your thoughts, find the next page of your notes, or ask if
there are questions and allow a silence for students to digest the
material. These pauses will allow you to gauge audience reaction and
shape your subsequent remarks accordingly.

Do "The Hardest Work Before it Seems Like Work"

I used quotes because this concept is directly from Boyce's book. As
you go about your day, make notes of thoughts about future classes that
crop up in your mind. Expand on those during little breaks of a few
minutes in your day, making mini-outlines or taking notes on further
thoughts. Continue to expand on these ideas, imagining student
reactions, metaphors or examples you might use, questions you might
ask, discussion points, etc. Thus you are not preparing in one painful
session, but slowly building to a preparation that will be partly
complete.

My Recommendation

I suggest that you choose at least one of these ideas to try out in
your teaching preparation or in your classes this week. You might find
the transition a little scary, but you also might find that it helps
your teaching. What have you got to lose?

About the Author

Gina J Hiatt, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, tenure coach and
dissertation coach and enjoys helping faculty and graduate students
complete research and writing projects and publish, while maintaining
high teaching standards and other commitments. In addition to
dissertation coaching, she teaches workshops and teleclasses on time
management, writing, career planning and grad student/advisor
relationships Contact Info: 6845 Elm Street Suite 710 McLean, VA
22101-3822 Phone: 703) 734-4945 Email: Gina@AcademicLadder.com URL:

Academicladder.com

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