I was talking to a client who was feeling a bit like she’d been hit by a truck. She’s teaching a class for the first time. Even though it is directly in her area of expertise, she’s overwhelmed by how much work it is. And surprised by how exhausted she is. Even if you have been doing […]
Read More »Taking responsibility for your PhD
There is a lot of discussion out there about attrition rates (high) and time to completion (long). Beyond asking questions of your prospective programs, what can you do to make sure that you finish and finish in a reasonable time? Take responsibility. Here’s an extended example from one cur
Read More »Why should students attend your class?
Your goal is for students to learn things. Is giving marks for attendance really going to help you achieve that goal? Or is your course designed so the benefit of attending and participating is clear?
Read More »You don’t have to do it alone
One of the great things about being an academic is how much autonomy you have compared to other jobs. Autonomy can also be one of the not so great things, too. If you are working really long hours and feeling overwhelmed with everything you have to do, you might have gone beyond autonomy. Help is […]
Read More »Why universities are recruiting PhD students
There is a lot of debate about whether we are training too many PhD students (given the demand for academic labour) or too few (given the needs of the so-called knowledge economy). At an individual level, plenty of unemployed PhDs are wondering how they ended up in such a precarious labour market position and why no […]
Read More »Learning to say “no”
I know that academic workloads can be nuts. I’ve been an academic.
I also know that as an academic you have considerably more control over your work than many other professionals.
Read More »Managing your workload as a full-time academic
Overwork is rampant in academe. Whether you are tenure-track, tenured, or some other kind of full-time (temporary or otherwise), the Tenured Radical has some of the best advice I’ve ever seen. It may seem harsh, but you are strongly advised to do everything she says. Here are some snippets to tempt you: Yeah, baby. The […]
Read More »Eyes wide open to Sessional Teaching
This post is part of a series on sessional teaching. The first installment: Because you need the money. The second: Because you need the experience The third: What if it’s not worth it? The fourth: Make sure sessional teaching develops your skills As term time approaches, those of you who don’t have tenure track or […]
Read More »Make sure sessional teaching develops your skills
If the main reason to do sessional teaching is to gain experience, you might want to be proactive in ensuring that you get the most out of it.
Teaching can be very rewarding. However, the lack of compulsory training for teaching in higher education can also contribute to frustration.
If your main source of knowledge about how to do this is how you have been taught in the past, you have limited options when things aren’t working the way you’d like them to. You might also be a bit lost if you are facing a teaching situation you rarely faced as a student yourself.
Read More »Sessional Teaching: What if you decide it’s not worth it?
So what if you need to pay the rent but you’ve decided that maybe the particular sessional teaching opportunities available are not worth it. They aren’t going to give you experience you need, and they’ll take too much time away from other things that are more important to your career development.
What are your options?
Read More »On the topic of teaching experience…
The University of Windsor is working on a project supporting Graduate and Teaching Assistants. They are collecting information about what is happening elsewhere. Here’s the intro from their site: … a team working with Graduate Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. We’re building […]
Read More »Why do sessional teaching? You need the experience
An excellent reason to do sessional teaching…
You need the experience
If you are going to make a career as a scholar in higher education, you are going to need to demonstrate that you can teach courses in your field.
It matters what course you have the opportunity to teach, though. This is also where the difference between being a TA on a course and actually teaching a course makes a difference.
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