Practical advice for every step of an academic career, from preparing lectures and networking to tenure, promotion and post-tenure review.
You've got several research ideas and enough energy to start three of them. Then someone asks how the projects fit the expectations for your appointment. That's a useful question to answer before the semester fills up. The…
Read articleYou finish the course with a clear sense of what you'd change. A few months later, preparation begins again, and you remember only that something about the second project needed work. The handbook recommends a post-semester…
Read articleThe semester is over, and you're ready to stop looking at the course site. Before you do, consider what your future self will need when preparing the next offering or explaining a teaching decision in a review. The handbook…
Read articleYou see a new teaching idea and immediately picture how it could fit your course. A few days later, another tool looks promising. Soon the class has several new routines, and you're spending more time explaining the system than…
Read articleThe course appears on your schedule again. You have the slides and assignments, so preparation should be easier. Then you remember the lesson that ran long, the confusing project prompt, and the explanation you wanted to change…
Read articleYou open the evaluations and find one comment you can't stop rereading. There are other responses, including positive ones, but that sentence follows you through the rest of the day. It can be hard to turn feedback into a plan…
Read articleThe course evaluation window is open, and you want students to participate. You also want the invitation to be fair. Asking for feedback shouldn't become a request for praise or a conversation about the rating you hope to…
Read articleYou read the end-of-semester comments and learn that students were confused by the project instructions for weeks. You wish you'd known earlier. Some of the problem might have been manageable while the course was still running…
Read articleYou've come from a difficult meeting, and class begins in fifteen minutes. Students don't know the backstory. They're arriving with their own questions, deadlines, and distractions, and the lesson still needs a workable start…
Read articleYou finish commenting on the draft, only to realize the next assignment is already due. The feedback may be thoughtful, but students have lost the chance to apply it when it would have helped most. The handbook emphasizes prompt…
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