Teaching Your First College Class: A Practical Guide for New Faculty and Graduate Student Instructors

No other teaching experience will feel quite like the first time an instructor walks into a classroom to face a class of students.

This book is a wise and friendly guide for new faculty and graduate student instructors who are about to teach for the first time.

It provides an introduction to the theory of teaching; describes proven strategies and activities for engaging students in their learning; and offers advice on classroom management, syllabus creation, grading, assessment, and discipline issues, among other topics. It prepares readers for a confident start as teachers, and gives them a firm foundation on which to develop their skills and personal classroom styles.

The author breaks teaching down into its component elements and tasks to enable graduate student instructors to identify their particular responsibilities, and learn about what works and does not. They will also benefit from reading the book as a whole as it sets their work in the context of course objectives and learning theory.

For new faculty this engaging book provides a solid basis from which to develop their skills and personal styles as teachers; and offers guidance on documenting their classroom success for the purposes of promotion and tenure. For graduate student instructors, the book is a companion that will give them confidence and pleasure in teaching, and stand them in good stead if they decide on a in any future career in academe.