Part memoir and part advice for others, Journey of Joy: Teaching Tips for Reflection, Rejuvenation and Renewal will encourage and inspire faculty who may have fallen out of love with teaching. It’s loaded with strategies to keep your teaching fresh and invigorated.
It’s 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning around mid-term. “Carrie James” (a fictional name) grabs her textbook and class roster and heads upstairs to her first class of the day. It starts at 9 o’clock. She makes a pit stop before arriving at the classroom. When Carrie enters the room, most students immediately stop talking. She quickly calls roll and says, “Let’s get started. We have a lot to cover today.” Carrie begins the lecture by displaying a list of key terms on the document camera. She lectures for most of the period, closely following the text outline and then announces a test to the moans and groans of students. As soon as class ends, Carrie returns to her office, shuts the door, and turns her attention to the manuscript that she was editing for publication. She has an hour before her next class which she puts completely out of her mind.
As an undergrad I had a hard time settling on a major so I sampled a lot of different courses during my first couple of years. I remember signing up for one course that looked perfect because it combined two of my interests — media and American politics. In addition to learning about the changing dynamics between the two from a historical perspective, I was excited to see how the professor would incorporate the current presidential election into the course.
“Mid-career faculty can easily reach a plateau where professional goals are less clear, even while an array of attractive personal and professional options may be available. The absence of motivating professional goals can cause professors to settle into a dull routine or begin to invest their energies in activities outside of their professional lives.” (p. 49)
Are your experienced faculty members as effective in the classroom as you would like them to be? If not, perhaps a faculty development program like the University of Minnesota’s Mid-Career Teaching Program could be the answer. Many faculty members currently in mid-career have probably had fewer teaching enrichment opportunities than their more recently hired colleagues, and just because they are experts in their disciplines does not necessarily make them good teachers. In addition, teaching is becoming more complex: student populations are more diverse than they used to be, and they often expect more from professors than students did in the past…