Katy, you are clearly an excellent teacher. I fear you are one of a dying breed, but let's hope others can be inspired to be so professional, and thorough. The "expectations of you" slide is actually how I approach all of your posts. Thank you.
Since I became regularly employed in university teaching, when I have volunteered to hand out how to vote leaflets in elections I have always asked the relevant party or campaign group to assign me to a polling place as far as practically possible from where my students were most likely to be voting in order to minimise the likelihood that a perception of my partisanship would affect any of my teacher-student relationships.
There is something I question myself about. In my capacity as a lecturer in politics and government I have often been required to present the range of general political ideologies, and the specific currents of thought that relate to an issue such as the environment. I try to present all of them as fairly and knowledgeably as I can, but I do sometimes wonder whether (for example) I could do a better job of lecturing on conservatism if I were a conservative.
This was why it was really good to co-teach with someone who has different views to me. I really try to present other views fairly, but obviously someone who has those views will be more convincing than I will be. We actually had a lot of fun, in the class I just taught, bouncing off each other and disagreeing. Now planning to do the same thing next year!
Teaching is really hard. Merely being an expert in something does not necessarily mean that you can teach it well. Sometimes it is not obvious until the end of semester that it was necessary to explain in precise detail that labelling something as a “research assignment” created an expectation on the part of the teacher that research would be undertaken to complete the assignment. In my own private fantasy world, good teaching at the tertiary level would be highly valued and explicitly taught and supported.
Katy, you are clearly an excellent teacher. I fear you are one of a dying breed, but let's hope others can be inspired to be so professional, and thorough. The "expectations of you" slide is actually how I approach all of your posts. Thank you.
I completely agree.
Since I became regularly employed in university teaching, when I have volunteered to hand out how to vote leaflets in elections I have always asked the relevant party or campaign group to assign me to a polling place as far as practically possible from where my students were most likely to be voting in order to minimise the likelihood that a perception of my partisanship would affect any of my teacher-student relationships.
There is something I question myself about. In my capacity as a lecturer in politics and government I have often been required to present the range of general political ideologies, and the specific currents of thought that relate to an issue such as the environment. I try to present all of them as fairly and knowledgeably as I can, but I do sometimes wonder whether (for example) I could do a better job of lecturing on conservatism if I were a conservative.
This was why it was really good to co-teach with someone who has different views to me. I really try to present other views fairly, but obviously someone who has those views will be more convincing than I will be. We actually had a lot of fun, in the class I just taught, bouncing off each other and disagreeing. Now planning to do the same thing next year!
Teaching is really hard. Merely being an expert in something does not necessarily mean that you can teach it well. Sometimes it is not obvious until the end of semester that it was necessary to explain in precise detail that labelling something as a “research assignment” created an expectation on the part of the teacher that research would be undertaken to complete the assignment. In my own private fantasy world, good teaching at the tertiary level would be highly valued and explicitly taught and supported.
Could you please write a Substack on how contract law would be in your own private fantasy world?
Well! Oh goodness, where would I start…?