Teaching at University: A Guide for Postgraduates and Researchers (Sage Study Skills Series)

216 Pages·2005·0.56 MB·english

by  Kate Morss

Teaching at
University
A Guide for Postgraduates & Researchers
Kate Morss &
Rowena Murray
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TEACHING AT
UNIVERSITY
A Guide for Postgraduates
and Researchers
Kate Morss
and Rowena Murray
SAGE Publications
London ●Thousand Oaks ● New Delhi
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© Kate Morss and Rowena Murray 2005
First published 2005
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
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ISBN 1 4129 0296 7
ISBN 1 4129 0297 5 (pbk)
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Contents
Preface: A New Role iv
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1
Theory and Practice 8
2
Your First Lectures 28
3
Your First Tutorials 50
4
Your First Electronic Discussions 76
5
Your First Laboratory or Fieldwork Practicals 97
6
Assessment of and Feedback to Students 114
7
Student Relations 134
8
Supervising Undergraduate Projects and Dissertations 148
9
Programme Validation and Module Management:
Quality Assurance and All That 169
10
Feedback on Your Teaching and
Continuing Professional Development 184
References 202
Index 207
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Preface: A New Role
This book has been written primarily for postgraduates who are beginning to teach
in higher education. We believe it is important that postgraduates have good
support for developing their roles as teachers and facilitators of learning. That there
is a need for this book is evidenced by requests for support and information from
postgraduates. While lecturers usually have access to courses and workshops,
postgraduates and other researchers are often not included in such programmes
and they may not know where to get help.
The book is based on our experience, over a number of years, of developing
and supporting postgraduates to become knowledgeable and confident in their
teaching roles. We know that, faced with the thought of meeting their students
imminently, postgraduates are often desperate for ‘hints and tips’. We understand
that need, and have included strategies, suggestions, guidelines, templates and
questions or prompts for thinking. However, we believe that postgraduates should
develop their teaching through the deliberate integration of theory and educational
research with their practice and by becoming reflective practitioners.
Confidence building is equally important. If you have been left to your own
devices, you are likely not to feel entirely comfortable in your new role. You will
probably have to balance teaching with research and other activities. You will have
to think carefully about how much time you spend on preparing for teaching, for
example, so that it does not delay completion of your degree. This may mean
improving your time management.
Alternatively, and equally importantly, there are examples of postgraduates
who have been asked to take on more than they can manage – through either
ability or availability – and we alert you at several points in our book to the need
for clarity in role definition. In fact, we encourage you not to take on more than
you feel you can manage, particularly if teaching is going to interfere with
completion of the thesis; you might avoid problems later if you learn where,
when and how to draw the line.
The aims of this book are to give you:
• introduction to the basics;
• explanation of different aspects of teaching;
• illustrations of good practice;
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PREFACE: A NEW ROLE
• frameworks for designing materials and classes;
• guidance on delivery of teaching;
• sources and resources for additional help;
• prompts to help you clarify your role and work out the limits of your
abilities and responsibilities.
The book achieves these aims by providing:
• information in a clear accessible style;
• summaries of learning theories and models;
• references to key research data and seminal works;
• reference to relevant contemporary issues in higher education;
• focus on potential crises of confidence for postgraduate teachers;
• outlines of key forms of teaching;
• clear descriptions of practical, effective strategies;
• tips on what not to do and what might be problematic at this stage;
• coverage of all stages in teaching, from design to delivery;
• ‘health warnings’ – avoiding situations that are, arguably, problematic for
postgraduates and/or where formal training is required.
The scope of this book is wide, since it covers many processes postgraduate
teachers are likely to be involved in and topics they need to know about, such as
current theory and best practice, guidelines and frameworks, concise summaries of
debates. However, there are many specific ideas to help you deal with the realities
of starting to teach.
To ensure the book will be useful in all disciplines, the content is generic,
although we have cited specific examples from a wide range of subject areas.
What is not included are detailed discussions of theories and topics we
consider to be outside the responsibilities of postgraduates, such as curriculum
design and programme development, academic administration, and design and
management of assessment.
This book is not intended to be a substitute for a course on teaching and
learning in higher education. It is a handbook primarily designed to support those
who, for whatever reason, do not have access to such a course before their first
teaching assignment. However, for postgraduates lucky enough to receive some
professional development and/or mentoring for teaching, the book will be a
useful additional resource.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge all those postgraduates with whom we have
worked over the years and thank them for their discussions, opinions and feedback
on our courses and workshops. They have enabled us to stay in touch with what it
is like to be a postgraduate teacher in the current higher education environment,
and their comments have informed the writing of this book.
We thank those postgraduates and colleagues who dedicated their time and
attention to read the draft of the book and give us helpful feedback: Donald
Maciver, Christine Sinclair, Morag Thow, Bill Johnston, Beth McKay, Jane Hislop,
Paul Maharg.
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Introduction
Who is this book for?
This book is primarily aimed at postgraduate students who are just beginning to
teach. So, you may be one of those students studying for a masters degree or
a doctorate. These are the students we refer to throughout the book as
‘postgraduates’. In some institutions, perhaps your own, postgraduates who teach
may be called postgraduate teaching assistants (PGAs), demonstrators or some
other title; to minimise confusion we have avoided these titles. We think this book
will also be useful for postdoctoral students, contract researchers, teaching fellows
or instructors and research staff – in short, for anyone whose main activity
is research but who does some teaching at the same time.
If you have been asked to do some teaching, you may feel you have been
‘thrown in at the deep end’, as, in fact, many postgraduates tell us they are. You
may, quite rightly, feel unprepared for the task, and, like other postgraduate
teachers, you may be facing a number of dilemmas. For example, you may not
have much time to feel your way into this new role. You may not be happy with
what looks like a ‘trial and error’ model of learning to teach. You may even feel
you have not had much choice in what you are to teach or what kinds of sessions
you’ve been asked to facilitate.
Someone in your department may have tried to reassure you – ‘You know all
this stuff. You’ll be fine’ – on the basis of your first degree, but you may still be
worried about whether or not you are really ready to teach.
We hope this book will support postgraduates in all disciplines, and for that
reason we have kept its language generic. In acknowledgement of the sciences, we
have included a chapter on teaching laboratories and fieldwork. For postgraduates
who are engaged in highly experiential activities, such as conservatoire teaching in
the arts, much of this book will be applicable.
Do you know what you are getting into?
Before you accept your first teaching task, consider the implications carefully. Yes,
it is excellent for your professional development and for the curriculum vitae,
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TEACHING AT UNIVERSITY
especially if you intend to pursue an academic career, but teaching takes up time,
in preparation, delivery and, frequently, marking. How much time can you afford
at this stage of your research? How often will you need to be ‘out’, collecting
data? How much data analysis will you need to do and how long is that likely to
take? How much writing have you managed to do already and how much do you
still have to do? When are the ‘pressure points’ for teaching and assessment, and
how do they intercalate with your research schedule? How much ‘new’ work will
you need to do in order to teach the topic(s)? Will you have to devise lectures
and/or activities for group learning, laboratory work and individual study, or has
all that already been done? What is the nature and volume of the assessments
you may have to mark? See if you can get answers to at least some of these
questions.
You may or may not have much room for negotiation about whether or
not to teach, since some institutions require postgraduates to ‘do a little teaching’.
However, having thought through the answers to some of the questions we pose
above, you should be better placed to set boundaries on what you do, and to
position that work in the context of your research project. For example, we would
suggest that you should draw the line at curriculum design and development,
which really should not be your responsibility. These tasks should be handled by
academic staff, since they require formal training and/or mentoring and discussion
with department colleagues. In your discussions with staff about your teaching,
you may be pressurised to do more than is fair or more than you want to do.
Remember, however, that the priority, for both you and your research supervisors,
is for you to complete your research on time.
To clarify, the accompanying table sets out responsibilities that are typical of
most postgraduate teachers and could serve as a useful guide against which to
benchmark your own commitments. You can see from this table that your
primary roles may include the facilitation, support and/or assessment of students’
learning. How much autonomy you will have in these roles will depend on your
department and the institution. You may be asked to use pre-prepared
PowerPoint slides for lectures and ‘off the shelf’ teaching materials for tutorials,
or, in contrast, you may be given lots of freedom to ‘do your own thing’ as long
as you cover the syllabus.
Regardless of the level of autonomy, it is your responsibility to help
students learn as best you can. In order to do this well, you need to understand
some of the theory and research on adult learning. You will need to know
how programmes or courses run, how they relate to aims and objectives or
learning outcomes, and where your particular teaching sits in the bigger picture of
the whole curriculum. It is not enough to see one session or class in isolation and
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INTRODUCTION
Typical responsibilities of postgraduate teachers
WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY WHAT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
Know and use key research and theories Read every paper on the topic
on adult learning
Understand the programme/module aims Design the curricula
and objectives/outcomes
Stay on track with the syllabus Write/rewrite the syllabus
Plan and prepare for your teaching
Facilitate students’ learning Take responsibility for them
Help students prepare for assessments
Provide information about assessments Design the assessments
and criteria
Assess fairly and give constructive feedback
Return assessments promptly
Comply with regulations and procedures Manage procedures for assessments
for managing assessments and marks and marking
Practise with due regard to the principles
of and legislation on equal opportunities,
race relations and disabilities
plan to teach it as a discrete event. Above all, it is crucial that the learning and
teaching activities you decide to use are linked to academic outcomes and
assessments.
One area to which you should pay particular attention relates to the issues of
equal opportunities, race relations and disabilities. In many countries now, there is
legislation preventing discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, gender,
sexuality, disability and/or status, and you should know what the law requires in
your country. You can, and should, find out more about these laws by asking your
institution’s policy unit or human resources department or by searching your
government’s website. However, regardless of the law, we strongly believe it is the
responsibility of all educators to engage in practice which is inclusive and equitable.
There is more discussion about these issues in Chapter 7 of this book which we
encourage you to read. Other good places to start for information and
pragmatic suggestions are Accessible Curricula: Good Practice for All
(Doyle and Robson, 2002) (also available at the University of Wales Institute
website http://www.uwic.ac.uk/ltsu/accessible.html) and the
Teachability Project website of the University of Strathclyde
(http://www.teachability.strath.ac.uk/).
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