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catbird | 4 years ago

Thanks for your comment. It sounds like you have learned these lessons through a lot of experience - do you have any suggestions on a book to read to get the very basics of teaching?

> When they train you to teach...

I started a job as a professor this year and never got any of that basic training. Before this I was a postdoc reading papers and writing code all day. In job interviews my lack of teaching experience wasn't seen as an issue. The faculty would say, "oh teaching isn't so hard, you'll figure it out quick enough." So far I have been muddling along ok, but I have this anxious feeling that there are a lot of aspects to this that I don't know that I don't know, and don't know where to get started on finding out about them.

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credit_guy|4 years ago

I did receive a bit of training, but as I said, I didn't find it to be too valuable.

I was extraordinarily fortunate to have just such a colleague as I mentioned. I consider her to be a genius when it comes to pedagogy. We went together and observed a great Professor teaching. She pointed to me lots of things, but one stuck to my mind: "Did you notice that he was wearing a tie? He doesn't wear a tie when he's in his office, or on the hallways of the Department, but he wears a tie when he teaches". That's respect for your students and for the action of teaching.

My Dad was a teacher. One day a former student of his told me this: "I remember the day he came and taught us X"(where X was a great poet - my Dad was teaching literature, not math). "He was wearing a black suite and white shirt and tie. That's how much he cared about teaching about X." I was impressed. I realized that kids care. And they notice. They notice if you put the effort, and they appreciate it.

Good luck in your career. I don't know of any book. I'm not a teacher or a Professor anymore. I work in the industry, but I do take interns every year, and in a sense that's a teaching (and research) experience. I enjoy it a lot, my next intern will join exactly one month from today. And just like I was preparing for my kids in the past, I'm preparing a lot for this intern. I hope he'll enjoy the experience.