Finding Yourself In The Classroom; Finding The Classroom In Your Life

Many new faculty members find themselves in a classroom having received neither experience as teachers nor instruction on teaching during graduate school. While mentoring programs and short course options do exist for some, most new faculty head into the classroom for the first time armed with only a packet of lecture notes and a recollection of the professors that they had found to be most engaging and a vague plan for emulating them. In a situation such as this, material coverage and mere survival become classroom priorities. It is easy for new faculty to overly concentrate on the academic content of each lecture, not concerning themselves with the context in which the classroom resides. Comfortably and confidently creating a dynamic learning environment takes more than just command of course material. To be happy and effective in the classroom, new faculty need to address two issues outside of the classroom: how teaching fits with personal priorities and career goals, and how teaching is valued and supported in the local academic culture. This paper offers tips for new faculty on learning to place the classroom in the context of personal priorities and local culture garnered from two different perspectives and points on the learning curve. This paper addresses issues of balancing teaching, research, and service from the perspective of personal priorities and goals. It discusses approaches to developing and maintaining a personal identity in the local teaching culture, while at the same time finding or creating a support network that works to meet individual needs. Finally, it offers some advice for improving classroom mechanics through preparation and record keeping, and for improving communication with students.