[Ed. note: Today's post comes from Abby Knoblauch, an Assistant Professor of English at Kansas State University, who teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in composition and rhetoric, persuasion, and popular culture. She maintains a blog at Whole Houses.]
In college, I learned a bit about how to teach high school English courses. In my master’s program, I learned a bit about how to teach undergraduate literature courses. As a TA and a Ph.D. student in composition and rhetoric, I learned how to teach undergraduate writing courses. It turns out, though, that I never really learned how to teach a graduate course.
I suppose it might be because graduate courses are often held up as a reward: the sign that you’ve crossed over into the land of full-time faculty. They’re graduate students, so, at least in theory, they want to be in class, they’ll also have done the reading, they’ll be eager to talk, and discussion will be at a higher level. Graduate courses, in other words, should be a breeze.
But they’re not a breeze, or at least not always. I’m teaching my first graduate course this semester: an upper-level Master’s course on rhetorical theory. It’s fantastic, for all of the reasons I’ve outlined above. But it’s also flat-out terrifying. Why? Largely because of my own insecurities: I simply don’t feel like the expert that I want to be. I feel like I’m faking it. In order to combat this insecurity, I try to be well prepared for class each day. But during the first few weeks, I seemed to be preparing in all of the wrong ways. I’d know the primary text, the historical context, and the scholarly conversation. I’d have notes and questions and connections ready. But often students would ask questions that I just wasn’t ready for (“What is the relationship between rhetoric and poetry today?”). They were usually interesting questions, but I had no idea how to answer them. Sometimes I could have the class discuss them or could encourage the student to research that topic, but not being able to simply answer made me feel as though I didn’t have the authority I wanted or needed. I felt like I looked unprepared, and that perception bothered me. Logically I know that I can’t know everything, but in these moments of insecurity, it’s the feeling that nags at me.
I’ve started to combat these feelings in a number of ways. First, I’ve been up-front with students about how huge the field is, where I’m most comfortable and knowledgeable, and where I’m not as well informed as I’d like to be. I’ve revealed my desire to know everything, or at least to look like I know everything, and talked about how unrealistic—and even damaging—that expectation is for all involved. Two simple routines have also helped me feel more confident in this course:
- I ask students to submit two questions at the end of each class. I don’t answer them all, but they give me a sense of the kinds of questions students are asking and a general sense of the class itself. This sort of temperature reading helps me figure out the types of questions I might want to prepare for in the future.
- I used to start by asking what questions students have, but now I write my own two questions on the board before class starts. I still ask what questions students have, but we now often start with my own questions, and that allows me to find my feet and feel like a credible source before we head into potentially uncharted territory.
These may be small routines, but right now they’re saving my sanity. ProfHacker readers, how have you have negotiated the differences between undergraduate and graduate courses? What strategies have you developed for teaching in this new (to some of us) arena? Please leave suggestions and thoughts in comments below.
[Image by Flickr user m00by and used under the Creative Commons license.]
Comments
1. New to grad teaching - March 04, 2010 at 03:58 pm
Thanks for this post. I am in a similar situation and would love to hear about any resources others have identified as helpful. I've searched for books, online articles, etc., and have come up with almost nothing. (Maybe this is a book opportunity for someone!) I have students submit one-page responses synthesizing their readings and offering two discussion questions by midnight the night before class. These responses let me anticipate (and if necessary, further research) their areas of uncertainty. That's one strategy (not unusual, I'm sure) that has helped me.
2. Charles - March 04, 2010 at 04:18 pm
Having been put on medical research panels with little knowledge of biology, I understand how you feel. Experience has taught me that being placed in a situation where you are expected to be an expert among a group of knowledgeable individuals (who can call into question your understanding of the topic) can be one of the most challenging and greatest learning experience you can have.
Basically my tactic for dealing was to understand that I was not all knowing and that having these scientists fully participate by challenging my assumptions (as I would challenge theirs). Don't get me wrong, I would prepare by making sure I understood the proposals that crossed my desk and what constituted a good project. In doing so, what struck me is that most discoveries and education come from a kind of conversation which is carried on between individuals that bring differing perspectives to the table. To learn from a professor who knows it all, it to read from a text that is 50 years out of date. Go to a professor who doesn't know it all and you both have the chance to discover something new.
3. Mark Crane - March 04, 2010 at 04:31 pm
Ha! I feel this way when I teach undergraduate seniors. One thing I have found is helpful is collecting reading responses online before class begins so I can get a sense of what they are thinking about. They write rich, interesting responses, then stare at me mutely when I try to discuss them in class :)
4. Paul - March 04, 2010 at 05:33 pm
Glad to hear this is not an uncommon problem. Teaching my first grad class right now, and share many of these concerns, having not been a grad student for all of ten months. But for me, the problem is a little bigger: what kind of learning outcomes am I really looking for? I've taken to being explicit about goals for students on undergraduate syllabi. But it seems more complicated with graduate students, esp. those with a range of experiences and ambition, and representing different degree tracks. The recent "edupocalypse," particularly regarding the academic job market, has pointed out some serious limitations to the professional outcomes of graduate education. I don't think my grad class should be all about professionalization. But the whole situation still gives me pause in thinking about what outcomes I really expect for grad students. Because I struggle to define those, I've struggled (it seems to me, anyway) to assemble a coherent pedagogical strategy for the course. I'd be curious to hear how others have dealt with this, esp. how people have adjusted or defined outcomes for graduate learning in light of the latest (but no doubt significant) crisis in the humanities.
5. Abby Knoblauch - March 05, 2010 at 01:01 am
I think this is a really good point, Paul. I have learning outcomes in my course policy statement/syllabus, but it's tough to know if they are really what I'm expecting of my students and my course. I'm in the position of only (and I mean "solely," there) teaching MA students as my university doesn't have a PhD program in comp/rhet. Many of these students are telling me that they're not planning to go to doctoral programs -- at least not yet, not in this economy. That plays into my thinking about learning outcomes, too.
In retrospect, having questions or discussion board posts before we discussed a text would have been helpful. :) I think that's something I'll take up next semester when I teach my next graduate course.
It's funny, too, that I don't feel the need to be The Authority in the same way in the undergraduate classrooms, but that might be a result of my already feeling more like The Authority--it's easier to let that go when you feel like you have it to let go of, you know? If I were to do it over again, I'd try to wait until the fall semester to teach my first graduate course. I just didn't feel as though I had enough time over the holiday break to get comfortable with the material or even the idea itself.
I should say that I am very much enjoying the conversations we're all having, and I think we're all learning quite a bit, but it always feels a bit like a gamble when I walk in the door.
6. Susan - March 05, 2010 at 10:55 pm
This is so timely--I'm just starting to think about readings for the grad seminar I'll teach next fall--I think it will be maybe the 4th or 5th graduate course I'll have taught in the course of my career, and the first at my relatively new institution. Much uncertainty!
Bob Yagelski had an article in CCC a while back about reflection, critical pedagogy, and the ways teachers--esp graduate seminar teachers--imagine their roles: http://www.albany.edu/~rpy95/ambivalence-ccc.pdf
While it doesn't precisely offer practical, how-to-run-a-seminar sorts of tips, I find it comforting as a piece that gives me permission to dwell with the complications of teaching grad students.7. Abby Knoblauch - March 06, 2010 at 01:35 am
Thanks for this Susan. I'm also wondering how people who teach graduate courses deal with grading. Typically, grad students need at least a B in the class, so do you keep the "standard" grading scale or do you sort of stretch out the A-B? Does that make sense?
8. Susan - March 06, 2010 at 12:59 pm
In my experience, grad seminar grades tend to run from B- to A, where B- work is really not adequate for satisfactory progress in the program. I think I have given a lower grade than a B- where a student didn't actually hand in all the work. But the grad seminar grade in my former department seemed to take B as "just scraping by for adequate progress toward the MA." I'll have to ask someone here what the norm is in the MA program.
9. Miles - March 06, 2010 at 03:54 pm
I sympathize with the feelings that Abby expresses; I felt pretty much the same way when I first started teaching graduate courses (in fact, I still feel that way sometimes!). But I think those feelings arise from a misplaced sense of the roles of the professor and students in a graduate seminar.
Students in a graduate seminar are already smart enough that they could probably learn on their own, given enough time and resources. They are (or should be) in some of the final stages of becoming active professionals or academics themselves.
This takes a lot of the pressure off us as professors. For the most part, all we need to do is provide an occasion and a structure for learning. And ideally, much of that learning comes from interaction between students, rather than between the students and me. This makes our role less the deliverer of information than the enabler of conversation.
Relaxing like this is sometimes hard for a new professor. As another commentator pointed out, you were probably a graduate student yourself just a few short months ago. So you feel pressure to distinguish yourself from your students, to set yourself up as the authority. It's actually much better to allow yourself to be a fellow-learner -- just one a few stages further along in the process then your students.
10. Miles - March 06, 2010 at 03:57 pm
"Than your students," I mean. Dang Dragon Naturally Speaking! ;-)
11. Abby Knoblauch - March 07, 2010 at 02:50 am
I concur, Miles, with pretty much everything. On the one hand, I do feel some pressure to separate myself from the graduate students because I was a graduate student about two years ago. On the other, these are first and second year M.A. students (we don't have a Ph.D. program) and I haven't been one of those in quite some time. Most of them are at least a decade younger than me and for many, this is their introduction to this subject (for most of them, even the ones specializing in it, this is their first course in rhetorical theory).
It's also a tricky situation because it's a graduate level course, but there are a few upper level undergraduates in it (it's not technically a split-level course, but undergraduates can take it with permission, but it's not my permission that they need). So I'm juggling a few different new challenges.
I'm also juggling my desire to be the authority, whatever that means, in order to prove I belong here to myself and to my department, as well as the students' expectations of me. Many of their lit professors lecture for 75 minutes, and, as one student explained, everything one professor says is "pure gold." As I noted, we've had a few frank conversations about different teaching styles, different learning styles, and the ideas of authority and knowledge in general. That seems to help them and me, especially as I lean away from lecturing and toward discussion. Plus, this is a 50 minute class that meets 3 times a week. So I'm struggling with time constraints as well.
However, amidst all this struggle, I think we're all learning quite a bit and while it's stressing me out, I'm having a very good time teaching this class. It's just unfamiliar territory, you know?
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