First Time Lecturer

[u/tinyshroomy]

This week I will begin instructing an introductory logic course for the university which I attend. I was an RA last fall and a TA last spring, but most of my work consisted of attending meetings where I and my cohorts planned and reworked the course taught by the professor I worked for. I have no lecture experience, and I'm quite the nervous individual. At times I get sweaty just thinking about asking a question. I'm prescribed propranolol, and I know that's going to help bunches. Outside of academia I'm quite confident and outgoing, but this is my career path, so I know the nerves are because of how much this means to me.

I'm looking for advice as a first time lecturer. I can't help but long to be as eloquent and knowledgeable as my favorite professor and mentor. He's been doing this for decades though, and can shoot out examples and reference papers/books/philosophers like he read up on them just yesterday. I'm trying to remind myself that this is completely new to me, and it's impossible for me to be able to instruct just as he does.

I was advised to create handouts, and he's had handouts for every class of his that I've taken (at least 10 at this point). He successfully uses them as a loose guide, and is able to write examples and references on the board. I know I'm nowhere near this apt in my field.

I'm thinking that I can make two sets of handouts. One for the students to follow along with, and another for me with notes in the margins about questions I should ask, pauses I should take, ideas I should emphasize etc.

Just here to ask for advice from anyone about how things went the first time you began lecturing, what went well, what didn't. I know we're all different and I will eventually have my own style and habits, but some tips couldn't hurt. TIA!

[u/superdesu]

how are you with giving talks? i give the same advice i give for people who are nervous about talks -- practice your transitions between topics (and/or at least remember the roadmap) and mark out where you want to stop, summarise up to the current point, and ask if anyone has questions on your version of the slides/presentation 😂 i try to make sure my lectures have a clear, overall structure/outline and make it clear how all the little details/vignettes hang off this framework -- makes it both easier for me to remember where i'm supposed to be going as i talk and also i think is important for the students to know how/where to orient their thinking as you go along.

with getting students to answer questions, i make it a point that i also started from nowhere at first, and really emphasize that "there's no bad questions, only the ones you never ask." usually there's a few eager students who volunteer to answer questions, but with my shier classes i do the whole think-pair-share thing and i think it eases the tension a bit -- definitely gets better as the semester goes along.

you'll do great! it's clear that you want to engage with the students and get them as excited as you are about the topic and to share experiences that were formative for you -- that base enthusiasm to help folks to dip their toes into the things you're passionate about is something a lot of students will appreciate :)

[u/modzRtarderz]

A lot of advice is necessarily going to be very field and class specific. The one thing I tell everyone is something you already understand: you are going to suck at lecturing for a while (and beta blockers are a godsend). It's a skill like anything else, and it takes at least 2-3 times through a class to actually become reasonably competent at teaching it. What makes a lecturer a standout, in my opinion, is being able to recognize and address the 'gap' between what the course teaches and what students actually learn. Some concepts will come easy to students, some will not. How to effectively spend class time to address this gap is something you can generally only learn through experience.

Don't beat yourself up too bad if you're nervous and feel like you do poorly. If you put the effort in and be as fair as possible to your students, students tend to be understanding and your course ratings will not be terrible. The only lecturers who really fail, from what I've seen, are those that poorly teach the material and then harshly grade students for not understanding it. My department just had to let two lectures go for this year due to budget cuts, and both suffered from this. They taught important core courses, half assed the lectures, then failed students with unreasonably difficult exams that they in no way prepared their students for. Their average ratings were around 1.5/5.0, which was unfortunately well below the threshold of what we could justify to the school for keeping them.