How to Prepare to Apply for a Job in Academia Series, Part 2: Observe
Welcome back to the series on How to Prepare to Apply for a Job in Academia! This series was created to give you a starting point as well as a roadmap for applying for jobs. Because, trust me, it’s very overwhelming! Here is what we cover in this 3 part series:
Part 1: Be Observed
Part 2: Observe
Part 3: Roadmap to Success
In Part 1, we talked about how important it is to be observed teaching in the classroom. If you missed the previous post, click here.
Part 2: Observe Others’ Teaching Practices
If you are in grad school for anything other than Education, you probably had never taught anything before starting grad school.
So that means your own experiences in front of a classroom is not enough. It is wildly helpful to see how others in your field teach their classes. Particularly, the people known for their teaching skills!
Like the people I mentioned in Part 1 of this series who will be observing your teaching.
Since you want to develop a relationship with them, you should definitely ask them if you can sit in on a couple of their classes to observe them.
This is especially helpful if they are teaching the same classes as you, or a class that you will be teaching in the future.
And what should you do while you observe them?
Take notes! Notice how they interact with the class. Get a feel for their flow and teaching style.
Use the same form that I mentioned in Part 1 and fill it out for them.
If you missed Part 1, click here.
Download the Teaching Observation Form!
What do you do if you notice that your teaching is severely lacking compared to the teaching practices of the person you observed?
Ask them for more help. I know that I love to talk about teaching. They will be happy to help.
Ask them how they plan their classes. Ask them how they choose what problems to work in class. Ask them how they get students to participate in their lectures.
I have a method that I use that starts on the first day of classes to warm the students up and let them know that I want them to participate in the lectures throughout the whole semester. I created a full email course that you can take to learn more.
Click here to take the FREE email course.
I hope that you are enjoying this series so far. There is only one part left. But first, let’s recap.
What do we need to do before we start applying for jobs in academia? Observe and be observed! Click here to read part 3 of the series.
