AY 375 Fall 2013: Sixteenth Day Plan

The final class of Ay375 will feature professors talking about their teaching philosophies and a discussion of the Teaching Portfolio.

1. Keep a teaching portfolio. They are becoming increasingly important for faculty applications, and they serve as a good repository of your best teaching practices.
2. Always keep thinking about teaching, despite what the research mongrels at places like UC Berkeley might tell you. Teaching can have a positive impact on your research, because teaching requires you to consider new material from alternative points of view, which in turn leads to new insights.

Teachers visiting:

• Leo Blitz, long-time instructor of Ay10 and graduate courses.
• Eliot Quataert, first-time instructor of a non-majors course, frequent instructor of graduate courses, Ay7ab, and Ay160 (stars).
• Mariska Kriek, new faculty member and first-time instructor of Ay7a.
• Geoff Marcy, long-time instructor of Ay12, currently teaching Ay12 and Ay160.

Some prompts given to the teachers in advance:

• What class are you currently teaching? Have you taught it in the past? What other courses have you taught?
• For the course you’re currently teaching, what are your learning objectives and goals? How would you complete the sentence “At the end of the semester, I want my students to .” ?
• How do you assess (in lecture, with the GSIs in discussion section, on the exams) whether these goals are being met?
• If you have taught both non-major courses and major courses, how does preparing for those courses compare? How do your learning objectives for them differ?
• What is your lecture style like? Do you employ active learning strategies (think-pair-share, etc.) in your lectures?
• In your teaching experience, what strategies have you found to be effective? Not effective? (e.g., different lecture styles, type of homework problems, projects vs. exams, etc.)
• What do you like best about teaching?

1. None! We're done!