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Session 0555

Benefits of Team-Teaching for Doctoral Students Preparing for Academic Careers Irem Y. Tumer and Lia F. Arthur The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract Doctoral candidates preparing for an academic career face new challenges in light of a changing academic world. As a result, having the capacity and desire to become a good educator is an important factor in deciding whether to pursue an academic career. However, most research universities typically do not provide significant teaching experience for their doctoral students. In this paper, we present an exciting approach for doctoral candidates interested in academic careers. Specifically, we present our efforts and recommendations on team-teaching an undergraduate class along with a faculty member. Team-teaching is different than a standard teaching assistant appointment or a faculty mentoring program. The duties involve preparing and delivering lectures, preparing homework and exam materials, and interacting with students as peers with a faculty member, while being directly compared to the faculty member. Our experiences range from implementing new tools to enhance learning, to dealing with undergraduates to enhance the ability to supervise students. We believe that such an experience provides doctoral candidates with an opportunity to experience the full spectrum of activities and responsibilities involved with teaching a class. We also believe that team-teaching provides a means of personalized mentoring and critique by experienced faculty, hence preparing the future faculty for the challenging task of teaching and research.

1.0 Introduction As doctoral students near the end of their studies and face the decision of whether to transition to a faculty status, questions and doubts arise about the difficulties of an academic career. Specifically, the question of what is involved in teaching is never really addressed while conducting research as a graduate student. The increasing competitiveness in academia and the shortage of sufficient academic positions are gradually forcing the importance of the education component to change even in traditionally research-oriented universities. Hence, as doctoral candidates preparing for academic careers, we must be prepared for the challenges of teaching even more than before. Yet, while we learn many important aspects of conducting competitive research as graduate research assistants, preparing doctoral students to become educators is still not a regular component of our doctoral studies. Even if some graduate students get teaching experience as Teaching Assistants, this does not provide a full picture of the teaching aspects of academia. In this paper, we present a promising approach to preparing future engineering faculty for the difficult task of teaching while conducting research. Specifically, we propose that doctoral students team-teach a course with a faculty member as part of the preparation necessary for an

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Arthur, L. F., & Tumer, I. Y. (1998, June), Benefits Of Team Teaching For Doctoral Students Preparing For Academic Careers Paper presented at 1998 Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/1-2--6939