Many of us have been involved in the Academy for Future Faculty program, and have come across many workshops/events hosted by the Center for Teaching Excellence. There is another opportunity that I want to share with you people who are passionate about teaching. ENG/SCEN/GEOS 677: College Classroom Teaching is a one credit hour class that is offered every spring semester. We meet every Friday from 3-5pm, and the class size is about 15-20 people. It started out as a STEM teaching class, but the content is actually quite useful for graduate instructors outside of the STEM field.
 
During this class, you will learn different pedagogical tools, learning outcomes and assessment design, classroom management skills, and be able to develop your own teaching-as-research projects. Some major assignment in this class include developing (or further developing) your teaching philosophy statement, refining your sample course syllabus (these two components are also part of your AFF), going through a teaching-as-research process including project planning and actual teaching, and most importantly, putting together a teaching e-portfolio that can be very handy for your future job hunting.
 
Last time I took this class, we also had guest speakers from different disciplines to talk about their online teaching and assessment projects, and we had a mutually supportive cohort. Even for experienced instructors, college classroom teaching and reflecting on your own teaching practices can be scary and full of unknown. Luckily our university has many supporting services that can help us. So if you want to strengthen your teaching skills and have time for this one credit hour course, definitely sign up!

---Mingqian Liu
Mingqian Liu is a doctoral student in the Department of Architecture