Dear Old and Middle Aged Dogs:
I am collecting tips about remaining an remaining an alive, current
and connected faculty member after 10+ years teaching the same or a similar
courseload. Tips collected so far (from the Teaching of Psychology
List Serv) have tended to fall into a few categories, which are summarized
below.
- I'm now looking for specifics. What have YOU tried? What works and what doesn't?
- For example, betweeen years 5 and 8 in my teaching I developed 4 completely new titles/courses and taught each a few times. I found that although developing a new course teaches me a lot, and a focus on continually new content is really interesting to me...but not necessarily for my students, who like a course with most of the kinks worked out!!
TIPS SO FAR
Quotes and Paraphrases
1. Renew Teaching Methodologies
Connect to the internet, learn to use film or poetry in Psychology
(or Psychology in film or poetry!), become an expert on small group discussion
formats, put it all on Power Point with cartoons and whistles
2. Reinvent Thyself
Attend a training seminar in pedagogy or in your field, develop a new
line of research, begin to write about teaching and your experiences
(the "Life Review" process) rather than a content area, coteach with a
colleague from another discipline
3. Reconnect with Students
Learn to focus on the performance and the connection with students
rather than the content of your lectures...Teach a course to first year
students that focuses on the usefulness of psychology in some way, focus
more on student skills and less on content, try to present or publish as
often as possible with student coauthors, have students in your home, volunteer
in some cocurricular activity on campus
4. Remember Your Purpose
Develop personal mission statements(s) that addresses why you
teach (one of mine is "to educate students to be advocates for children
in the global community" which echoes the Rollins mission statement), involve
yourself in the larger mission of your university, read about mission and
higher education, make a religious or spiritual connection with teaching
as a discipline
STILL NEED:
Suggested Readings on this topic
(Has anybody read Peter Frederick or Parker Palmer on this topic, and
can you recommend books or passages?)
