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...
The recent report from Harvard College on grade inflation (Claybaugh, 2025; hereafter “the report”) is an important reminder...
Students often enter a new course with some degree of trepidation wondering whether they belong (Wilson & Wilson,...
Online students are not only reading our words; they are interpreting our intentions. That realization changed the way...
I’ll probably never stream Netflix’s The Chair or read Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members trilogy, even though colleagues...
As we gear up for a new semester, how can we ensure our planned collaborative activities and related...
When instructors sit down to write their syllabi before the semester, one challenge they face is how to...

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.

<!-- This site is converting visitors into subscribers and customers with OptinMonster - https://optinmonster.com :: Campaign Title: Reader Survey 2026 --> <script>(function(d,u,ac){var s=d.createElement('script');s.type='text/javascript';s.src='https://a.omappapi.com/app/js/api.min.js';s.async=true;s.dataset.user=u;s.dataset.campaign=ac;d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);})(document,6063,'i4icjbiidtzffhxinqwt');</script> <!-- / OptinMonster -->