Questions tagged [teaching]
This tag is related to the role and duties of a teacher, an academic instructor, tutor or a teaching assistant.
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How to verify authenticity of submitted assignments
When teaching 250 students in the same subject, knowing each student can be quite difficult. In smaller classes, it may be possible to learn enough through classroom interaction that when assessing ...
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Drawing Lines when Giving Ideas to Undergraduate Students
I teach quite a few 'unprepared' students and I find they struggle with finding source material on which to base their reports. Basically, they need to read a lot and apply theories to different ...
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Keeping marking unbiased when work is not submitted anonymously
I'm used to a system in which all important exams or pieces of coursework are marked anonymously. (That is, papers are identified by candidate number, not by name, and the examiner does not know which ...
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Is it possible to survive in university academia without applying for grants?
I see that many professors spend all of their time applying for grants, minus a little bit of time to interact with the graduate students on their grants and a little bit of time to fulfill their ...
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How will this departmental restructuring plan affect students and faculty?
I am an undergraduate Computer Engineering student at the University of Florida. In response to recent budget cuts to higher education in Florida, my department (Computer and Information Sciences and ...
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How to investigate why students do not do their homework?
I teach freshmen courses. The lessons are in the classroom, but I also use an LMS to receive homework, to communicate grades and comments, and to post additional readings and resources.
It is normal ...
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Is machine learning causing a brain drain in math, science and engineering academic community? [closed]
Engineering undergrads that I talk to often express a desire to go learn about machine learning, AI, or data science.
Even students in specialized fields, e.g. computer architecture or pure math, ...
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Allowing a student to sit in during class [closed]
I'm a grad student who will be teaching a course for the first time over the summer, and I'm not sure what the convention is on allowing a student to "sit in" on the class (that is, attend class ...
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Can teaching help one's studies?
Most of the questions about teaching assistantship portray TA'ing as a waste of time that only damages research. Although I am not TA'ing this year I consider applying for a TA position next year, ...
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Effective open-ended student evaluation questions
As we reach the end of the semester, the students in my class are being asked to do their evaluation of my teaching, as is common at most universities. As with most evaluations that I know of, I have ...
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Why are online lecture notes usually not accessible to non-students?
When looking for online lecture notes, I notice that most of the time you have to be a student and login in using your institution information to get access.
Why would a professor not show the lecture ...
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Teaching Assistantships and research
I'm working as a TA now, and I've found that I'm spending an inordinate amount of time on my TA-ship. Is this normal? Furthermore, is this expected? I'm worried that my research career will suffer ...
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How do you choose a textbook for a new class
I am teaching a new class next term and I need to choose a text book (or create a reading list) for it. The class is a hands on introduction to programming with MATLAB. A quick search of my library's ...
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How to demonstrate excellent undergraduate and graduate teaching capabilities in academic position applications?
It is quite common in almost all position opening announcements in academic institutes to demonstrate EXCELLENT teaching capabilities. For instance sentences like below:
Applicants are expected to ...
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Can I pursue a PhD while working as an Instructor/Lecturer?
So, I'm applying for jobs as an instructor/lecturer. They explicitly only require a master's degree, which I have, in addition to some valuable industry experience. It's plausible that I could get ...
user499
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Private Git repositories for students, that don't become public later
Note: This question was asked before GitHub offered free private repositories.
Short version of my question: Is there a good way to provide students with free, private, Github-like git repositories, ...
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As a teaching assistant, how important are student evaluations?
I have seen a number of résumés of doctoral students, but only a few of them listed their evaluation scores when presenting their teaching experience.
How important are these scores in evaluating ...
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Is it acceptable to look up a student on the Internet to find out whether I have a conflict of interest?
This is a follow-up to this question, which I ask due to debates arising in the comments. While I ask it in the first person to keep things simple, it is not based on a real experience of mine.
One ...
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How should a teaching-assistant calm his anxious student down in an exam?
At the class quizzes or at the mid- or final exams, I can see that some students are too anxious and nervous. They are not really weak students but too much anxiousness brings their efficiency down ...
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Alternatives to relying solely on student evaluations of teaching to help administrators more accurately assess teaching effectiveness
This question is about my attempt to give the administrators at my institution some feedback on how to better help them assess faculty teaching effectiveness.
My institution is soliciting input from ...
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How do you record your lectures?
While reading this question, and specifically Chris Gregg's answer, I started to think about recording my lectures in order to help students review, help students who missed class, and generally ...
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Without teaching experience, but industry experience, how can I begin teaching at college level?
I have a desire to teach at one of the colleges/universities in my area. I think my experience in industry and my own educational background would be an asset to an IT program. However, I'm finding ...
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What happens when a instructor really goofs up a course?
Given how many college courses are taught every academic semester in the world (or even just in the U.S.), it simply must be the case that some portion of the instructors badly goof up their courses, ...
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How can I sell my text book to my students in e-book format?
I would like to be able to sell my text book to my students in e-book format. I know there is the kindle store that takes 65% of the sales price, which is in my eyes too much. Are there any e-book ...
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What to do with teachers who think their subject is "extra special" and gives students too heavy a load?
I've had my fair share of teachers who give so much more load than the previous teachers of the same subject. A whole extra project, much more papers, or exercises, etc.
The bigger problem is that ...
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Where to draw the line when giving feedback?
When teaching undergraduates, I find myself trying to balance making them stretch to produce good work and giving them guidance. I must admit in my own undergraduate and graduate studies I rarely if ...
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Can academic teaching and quality research go hand-in-hand? [closed]
[Long]
I have been working in a very well known university in India. I am a faculty member in the department of Computer Science. My appointment to the university is somewhat temporary given the ...
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How much effort does it take to record video courses?
MIT's OpenCourseWare has many video courses. They are very helpful, but compared to the majority of MIT curriculum they're only a small part. So, how much effort does it take to record video courses?
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Do I need to have teaching experience before entering grad school?
I'm considering going back to graduate school, but I've heard from a number of friends that graduate students are all required to teach. Is that the case? I have no teaching experience at all. Will ...
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Are there situations where taking an honorarium for trying a textbook on a class is acceptable behavior?
A publisher for an e-textbook is offering me an honorarium if I try it with a class. My own ethical take on this is that I would not entertain this regardless of the size of the honorarium (which I ...
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How does one go about starting a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)?
Currently my university does not offer any MOOCs. I am interested in creating one. How should I go about it? Does my university need to sign an agreement with one of the providers such as Coursera or ...
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What can we do to increase student engagement?
My University has recently started recording lectures and posting them online. We have also, in the past few years, noticed a considerable drop in lecture attendance across the whole Physics and ...
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What is the role of research in liberal arts college faculty evaluation?
Lately, I've been wondering why institutions with a primary emphasis on undergraduate education (e.g. liberal arts colleges) value research output amongst their faculty. This is not intended to ...
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What should I include as "evidence of effective teaching methods?"
I'm in literature and applying for a tenure-track position.
One of my job applications is asking for "evidence of effective teaching methods" as one of the documents I am to submit.
Does anyone ...
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Grading scheme which helps figuring out what is a right/wrong answer without generating frustrations
I am in charge of the grading for an undergraduate class, and I am trying to determine the grading scheme which would best help students figure out what is a correct/incorrect answer without ...
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University Teaching Certifications for Different Countries
A while back I asked this question which was about teaching certifications. As I dig into the subject more, it seems teaching certifications are quite rare for university teachers in many countries.
...
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How to score class participation, correcting for natural outspokenness?
When my students ask questions and participate in discussion, class is more thoughtful, more fun, and more effective. I encourage their participation by checking in with them regularly, and making ...
user14140
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3
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How to intervene with a student struggling in the major?
As a lecturer, at the start of each semester in all of my courses, I have students complete a first-day diagnostic quiz on topics from the prerequisite course. There are usually a few significant ...
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How bad do your teaching evaluation scores have to be before you should leave them off your resume?
I got a 4.0 out of 5.0 on my teaching evaluations. The average grade in my department is a 4.5. Should I put this on my CV/resume?
For reference, I am a PhD student and this is the first class I've ...
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While teaching how should I give justice equally to both female and male students?
I am 27 years old unmarried male teacher. I have been a teacher (lecturer) for the last 6 months in an Engineering institution. My students are 4 to 5 years younger than me.
The problem is that while ...
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During recitation sections, should I ask students for help in coming up with the answer?
Typically when teaching recitation sections (in lower level applied math classes), I bring a problem or two, and ask students to fill in the steps in the solution. Usually 4 or 5 people (out of 10-15)...
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Is it better to NOT have an RA, and instead be doing a TA for the first couple of years of PhD?
I am a first year PhD student intending to work in convex optimization and its applications. I don't have an advisor yet, so I am still TA-ing. I had a long talk with a very helpful senior grad ...
user42273
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Resources for English speaking students with poor command of grammar and writing style
I sometimes read student assignments where the grammar and writing style is poor. Paragraphs don't really flow. Sentences go on for ever. The ordering of words is awkward. Instead of concisely ...
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How to implement flipped classroom for 18 year olds?
I teach an introductory programming course at university where 99% of my students are 18-20 years old. They are used to the old and boring education system they know from high school, so they are not ...
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How to motivate students to do readings
I am planning on teaching a couple of math-y classes next semester that will involve a large amount of in-class group work and discussions, and relatively little lecturing. There will be required ...
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Encouraging team-work while discouraging free-riding
I teach several courses for computer science undergrads, including algorithms, programming and game development. In all my courses there are weekly homework assignments. I encourage my students to do ...
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New faculty. Already lagging on responsibilities bad. Any advice on coming back?
I'm a fourth year doctoral candidate who is ABD right now and recently got a full time position at a small liberal arts college (SLAC). So far, I'm not off to a great start. I showed up to orientation ...
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What gets included for Continuing Professional Development?
When you are asked to list what continual professional development (CPD) you have completed in the previous 12 months, where do you draw the line on what gets included?
I would think attending a ...
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How should I feel about a professor using an entire online course for his own course?
I'm taking a machine learning class at a school in South Korea. I've heard some good and bad things about this professor in particular, but I didn't really know until I actually took his course.
I've ...
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What are typical examples of "scholarly work"?
I am looking into applying to a teaching position at a liberal-arts institution. The application page asks for an example of scholarly work. What are good examples of scholarly work? For the sciences, ...
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