Section 5.2 Learning how to use active engagement strategies
The new faculty members learned how to use such active engagement strategies in a variety of ways. These included sitting in on an experienced faculty member's course, listening to an experienced teaching assistant, debriefing with a co-instructor, consulting with more experienced faculty, reading the wiki, and watching videos of a prior instructor's class sessions.
Sitting in on an experienced faculty member's course.
Sometimes new faculty members chose to observe an experienced faculty member teach. One described this enculturation process as follows:
In order to prepare, I did sit in on some lectures from (an experienced faculty member) and so that was just getting a feel for the tone that I wanted to set in my classroom.
Although the course differed from the one the new faculty member was assigned to teach and the new faculty member referred to the classes observed as “lectures”, these sessions provided examples of ways to actively engage students in developing the content that was the focus of the lessons.
Another new faculty member recommended observing an experienced faculty member teach a course in preparation for taking it over:
If the teaching schedule is set, I think it is a good idea to observe the class before teaching it; I observed (an experienced faculty member)'s class a couple of times, the lecturing itself is not a big problem but the lab sessions it was really helpful to have observed the classes. It's good to have an experienced TA...I don't think it's a good idea to change TA and instructor at the same time.
This faculty member also recommended pairing a new faculty member with an experienced TA.