When the Teacher Becomes the Student

adult students in classroom
As a follow-up to last week’s post, here’s a final bit from my rummaging around old favorites in my personal library of teaching and learning resources. The insights come from Roy Starling’s great piece in which he recounts his experiences of being released from his teaching responsibilities to take a full load of courses with a small group of undergraduates. It radically changed his teaching, as it did Marshall Gregory’s when he enrolled in an undergraduate acting class, and as it did mine when I took a non-major’s chemistry course with 20 first-semester students. Most faculty do not have time to take courses or they’re at institutions without programs that support these experiences. However, even short visits to a colleague’s class and experiencing it as a student (not a peer reviewer) yields insights about teaching and motivates change.

To continue reading, you must be a Teaching Professor Subscriber. Please log in or sign up for full access.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Articles

I have two loves: teaching and learning. Although I love them for different reasons, I’ve been passionate about...
I was recently invited to write an essay about a pedagogy of joy, an approach to teaching that...
Moving beyond standard instructional practices is a necessity in today’s diverse classrooms. Faculty are tasked with creating educational...
AI has opened a world of new opportunities for student learning. I have discussed how instructors can easily...
Cramming is an alluring but risky study strategy. Let me explain. By the time students get to college,...
During a recent interview for a longitudinal study on undergraduate writing and learning that I am conducting at...
Large language models can explain concepts, summarize readings, and even generate practice problems. But developing professional expertise—the kind...

Create a free account, or log in.

Gain access to limited free articles, news alerts, and select newsletters

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Login here

Get unlimited access to The Teaching Professor

Stay informed. Subscribe Now.

WELCOME OFFER

$19.00 $14.00/month

for your first 6 months. Use coupon code TP6MO.

$19.00 thereafter. Cancel anytime.

Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Teaching Professor

You only have  free article views remaining.

WELCOME OFFER

$19.00 $14.00/month

for your first 6 months. Use coupon code TP6MO.

$19.00 a month thereafter. Cancel anytime.