Enough About Me: Teaching Without Teaching

An empty classroom.

While (crankily, reluctantly) sitting down to figure out what to compose this blog post about, I just desperately resorted to making a list of all the teaching related things I'd done this semester. While I was doing so, I realized that this semester served as an interesting reflection of a subject I am theoretically already supposed to be brainstorming about: ways to improve your teaching even while not teaching. I touched a bit on my intention to do so in my New Year's post, so we might as well check up on how I'm getting along!

In the history PhD program at UIUC, we often have the opportunity to teach quite a bit. However, many programs don't have such options-- because they have fewer undergraduates, different department cultures, etcetera, and even here there are people who end up only teaching for a year or a semester during their degree. So how does one accrue teaching experience-- you know, that little thing that is likely to make up a portion of many jobs one gets with a history PhD? How do you write a teaching statement if you haven't taught much and haven't had the opportunity to develop a practice-based teaching philosophy? These things I only came to after teaching, to know that they were useful and would have been useful even if I hadn't had the chance to teach, so I hope that collecting a few suggestions here will be useful to those of you who may be wondering about these questions.

First, times without teaching can be a great time to work on requirements for whatever teaching-related certificates you may be eligible to get. I completed my Graduate Teaching Certificate this semester, in part because I finally had some time to look through old evaluations and notes and write the reflections required. However, the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning has a variety of other certificate options which require less teaching, so look at your local offerings-- you may be able to get a teaching certificate based on study of pedagogy even if you don't get the chance to put theory into practice during your career as a student.

Non-teaching semesters and summers can also be great times to attend lectures or join in discussion groups or workshops on teaching. In a very on-brand move, I participated in our department's Reacting to the Past workshop, both as a panelist talking about my experience implementing the pedagogy and as King Louis XVI in a quick round of the French Revolution game. Many workshops such as this are available to you whether you have plans to teach using the techniques or not-- it’s a great way to learn about things that at best, you may want to incorporate into future teaching, and at worst, you may benefit from being familiar with in a conversation or interview.

I also had the opportunity to aid a few professors this semester by filling in for them in leading class or doing some extra grading. Others I know have had success with taking part-time work grading remotely for courses at other institutions. Again, this is a more comfortable role if you have taught before, but if you have the opportunity, activities of this sort can develop your comfort with speaking to strangers and making grading decisions, with the added benefit of feeling less momentous-- after all, you are setting dynamics for one day, not the entire semester, so the stakes are lower; if you're grading students you are not personally acquainted with, it can be easier to take one piece of work and evaluate it.

I'm carrying my teaching practice into the summer by returning to the Center for Talented Youth in June. This is another handy way of getting teaching experience-- seeking opportunities with high schoolers either locally (Urbana High School, for example, is often looking for tutors) or through programs like CTY. 

I mentioned above that I'm supposed to be thinking about how to practice/improve teaching while currently without a teaching position; this is not just due to my resolutions but also to a recently accepted roundtable I've organized for the 2020 American Historical Association meeting. I'll plan to speak more on this topic in this graduate teaching roundtable, so if you're attending, I hope you'll stop in.

How do you work on teaching while not teaching? I'd love to hear in comments.