From the time that you finish taking courses in graduate school, until you have to evaluate other people’s teaching (for tenure and promotion, say), you could get away with not watching anyone else teach. Of course, we see talks at conferences, and maybe think about teaching quite a bit, go to workshops, etc. But it is not that hard to go through this period of your life without being in any classroom but your own. Sadly, this is also the period of your life in which your teaching is under the most scrutiny. From the moment you get hired for a postdoc or tenure-track job, you will have to prove to others that your teaching is worthy of letters in the first case, and of keeping your job (i.e. getting tenure) in the second. In any case, you are still learning how to teach, and while a lot of this is “learning by doing”, it is surprising how little we see others teaching. I have been fortunate to have had a few chances to see my peers, friends, and colleagues teach, and I wanted to share some of the lessons I learned through that, and also to encourage you, dear readers, to do the same.

Continue reading →