Preparing For An Academic Career Through Team Teaching As A Graduate Student

Many graduate students pursue their doctorate degree as a milestone towards the attainment of their ultimate goal, to be an educator. Unfortunately, many of these students will go to graduate schools where they will have little, if any, chance to develop their teaching skills in the face of the research workload necessary to obtain a doctoral degree. Many students will obtain their doctoral degrees at Research I universities, focusing primarily on research, and then end up teaching at schools where there is a greater emphasis on teaching. Typically, a graduate student will have the opportunity to be a teaching assistant for one or more semesters, but as these positions are commonly for lab classes or discussion sections, the student does not gain experience in the actual preparation, delivery, and assessment of an entire course. However, if the student graduates and is able to obtain an academic faculty position, that is exactly what they will be expected to do, most likely during their first semester on the job. Depending on what has been left behind by the last professor to teach the class, a new professor may have to develop all of the lecture material, a syllabus, homework problems, examinations, and possibly laboratory experiments. This is a daunting task for anyone, but especially so for someone who has absolutely no experience. Consequently, incorporating some type of voluntary teaching education into the PhD curriculum could provide graduates who are better prepared for their first faculty position and more confident that they are making the right choice in pursing a career as an educator.