Are you interested in a faculty career after graduation, but aren’t quite sure how to get started? “Preparing Future Faculty” (PFF) can help. This month-long seminar offered by CRLT supports graduate students who will be navigating the transitional period between graduate school and becoming a faculty member. Come join a community of fellow graduate students from across the university as we discuss developing inclusive teaching practices, preparing for the job market, and what to expect after you receive a faculty position. In this blog post, PFF alum and this year’s PFF Program Assistant, Anoff Nicholas Cobblah, gives an overview of the Seminar and how he found it beneficial as he began preparing for the academic job market. 

Like many students, I entered graduate school inspired by my undergraduate professors, but with little understanding of the obstacles I might face in applying for and succeeding in a faculty position. As I began to envision the end of my graduate career, it was hard not to feel powerless in the face of stories about the arbitrary whims of the job market and the burdens placed on junior faculty (especially those who already occupy a disadvantaged position due to race, gender, sexual orientation, class, or nationality). PFF offers hope by providing graduate students with knowledge and concrete skills to help navigate this daunting process. Those who attend the seminar receive guidance in inclusive teaching practices and developing job materials, such as teaching philosophies, diversity statements, and syllabi. During my PFF seminar experience in 2018, for example, I drafted a syllabus for an upper-level English course on “The Evolution of the Victorian Novel.” Like many graduate students, I had no experience designing my own upper-level course. PFF taught me the importance of backwards course design and setting clear course objectives. PFF also allowed me to get productive feedback on my syllabi and other job materials from fellow graduate students both within and outside of my discipline. Articulating the value of my research and pedagogical interests for those unfamiliar with the norms of my field motivated me to more carefully consider the role I hope to play as a faculty member.

We wish we did not have so many occasions to provide guidance to instructors on teaching in tumultuous times. The campus community is beginning yet another new term amidst a range of distressing events:  from hate-based violence in the U.S. and around the world (including but certainly not limited to a series of anti-Semitic attacks in New York, a church shooting in Texas, and violence against Muslims in India), to environmental disasters in many parts of the world, to escalating conflict between the US and Iran. As we return from the break to the regular work of teaching and learning, many people in our community are feeling threatened and terrorized, grieving deeply, experiencing intense anger, or fighting a sense of despair at a swelling of hatred and violence in our nation and world. CRLT regularly re-posts the guidance below because it is important to remember that these emotions enter our classrooms, studios, and labs, and they can understandably and significantly affect students’ ability to focus on their learning and work with peers in our intellectual community. 

In 2019, 15.3% of all incoming domestic undergraduate U-M students were first-generation college students (FGCS), or students who are the first generation in their family to attend college, up from 8.7% in 2015 (The University Record). The university has been working for years to create supportive conditions for FGCS, many of which have come together recently: in addition to the Kessler Presidential Scholars Program established in 2009, U-M launched a first-gen focused website in 2016, and the First-Generation Student Gateway housed in the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives opened in 2017.

As the institution expands its focus on FGCS on campus, what can you do as an instructor to better support FGCS in your classroom? 

As we approach the middle of the term, instructors are already asked to think about the student evaluations of teaching that happen at the end of the term. In late October, U-M instructors will be invited to preview evaluation questions and create a few of their own questions if they wish.  What principles or goals might guide you in that process?

In this blog post, we review the questions that are used University-wide on end-of-semester evaluations, and we provide guidance on how to make the most of the instructor-created questions. These question-writing principles can also be used to create questions for feedback that you collect at other times of the semester.

The current student evaluation of teaching has 10 required items (rated on a scale of “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” for all but one, as noted below). Two of these will no longer be included as standard questions after 2020. These questions are:

Whether you're starting a course from scratch or revamping something you've taught many times before, careful planning is key to successful teaching. CRLT offers many resources to support U-M instructors in their course planning as the beginning of the semester draws near.

• The resources on this Course Design and Planning page focus on course design. Do you tend to begin your course planning by asking, "What material do I want to cover?" or "What do I want my students to learn?" Research shows that instructors best promote student learning when they start with the second question, organizing course content, class activities, and assignments around a clear set of learning objectives. The Course Design and Planning resources explain this research and walk you through the process of applying it to your courses.

• This page on Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning focuses on preparing individual class meetings. It outlines steps for developing daily learning objectives, structuring relevant learning activities, and checking student understanding along the way.