Lesson Plan 10

What students had as an assignment: Assignment 8

[40 mins] Part 1: Teaching at Different Types of Institutions

  • Each person in the circle goes around and answers the question:
    • What undergrad institution did you go to, and give us a sense of the vibe there and number of students (if its not one we are familiar with).
  • Notice there is a huge array in the types of institutions and their structures, historically a lot of schools didn’t know what to do with computer science. In some schools its a separate school (e.g., CMU) in others its in the engineering school (e.g., NC State)
  • The origins of a college and the philosophy of the founders can impact what the school looks like today. Also if its a public school vs private school, that can impact how much autonomy the school has and how the school is run
  • Oftentimes private smaller liberal arts colleges have much bigger focus on student experience because they need students to continually enroll to keep the lights on in a more direct manner, and this can impact you as a faculty member at said institution and how you interact with the students.
    • E.g., at large public institutions with hundreds of students in a class, you will likely have less opportunity to interact directly with students day-to-day and instead interact more with TAs
  • Theres a lof of factors to think about when deciding between teaching at different types of institutions
  • Differences between differences in Teaching Track Job market;
    • In tenure track, theres a clear expectation of what a job search, job talk and position looks like, but in teaching track, none of those things really exist
    • The language around jobs is also wildly different. In tenure track there are standard ways of talking about it and theres a generally expected promotion track that is generally compatible across most institutions. Teaching track is wildly different, theres no consistent naming. Teaching track faculty are are called very different things at different institutions.
  • Q: Does anyone have any specific questions about different types of teaching jobs?
  • Most teaching track faculty positions get hired based on potential rather than experience because most PhD students have essentially no teaching experience coming out of their PhD.

[40 mins] Part 2: Discussion: Job Application Materials

  • When applying to teaching track positions, sometimes there are fears that they are just applying as a backup in case the tenure track faculty applications don’t work out. So this is something you might get questions and have to address.
  • Cover letter is key part of teaching track packet because it gives you an opportunity to make it very explicitly clear that you are genuinely interested in teching track positions
  • For reaching statement, you could maybe think about how you could continue doing research while working with and getting new students into research. How could you break your research plan down into problems that students can work with
  • Because most liberal arts schools don’t have separate teaching track positions, you’ll likely do a combination of teaching and research but the ratio will vary widely depending on the institution
  • Q: The real meat of a teaching track application is the teaching statement. We asked you to read a couple in the assignment for today. Does anybody have any questions about teaching statements?
  • Be specific, not general, in your teaching statements. Concrete examples of your experience are way more impactful than broad generalities.
  • Be prepared to talk about the bad parts of your teaching if asked during the interview process, but polish them. Try to demonstrate that you can reflect on and learn from mistakes.
  • Generally length is a page and a half-ish (will depend on if the school asks for a separate diversity statement, or if you’re expected to include that content in your teaching statement)
  • Try to make your research statement skimable
  • In your diversity statement, its helpful to provide evidence about how you support diversity in the classroom or in the community (or things you hope to do in the future), be careful to make the entire diversity statement about your own personal diversity
  • A few citations in a teaching statement can be good because it can provide evidence that you’ve thought about it

[10 mins] BREAK

[60 mins] Part 3: In-Class Activity: Presenting Homework Assignments

  • Activity: Each student takes 5 mins to present the homework assignment they made for tody’s assignment
    • Everyone shared a google doc with their assignments so the rest of the class could follow along
  • Common feedback on the homework assignments from the instructors was:
    • Make sure that the learning goals that you mention in the grading rubric are present in the assignment. Try to be realistic with the learning goals you are actually able to cover in the assignment
    • Be mindful of how much work grading the assignments is going to be (e.g., fill-in-the-blank questions can be much easier to grade than free response questions)