Professional development for a new academic

Prabhakar Clement Senior Lecturer Centre for Water Research

An academic beginning a career in a university is faced with multiple new challenges. Most new academics come with little or no teaching experience and that experience is often teaching in small group settings. In my own case, after completing my PhD, I worked as a consulting engineer for over seven years and my teaching experience was limited to lecturing in professional short courses. Due to the lack of teaching experience, I completely underestimated the level of effort needed to develop new courses and agreed to teach 4.5 units in my first year at UWA. I am now in the middle of a process of getting baptised into the academic community, by fire, I guess!

When I attended the Foundations of University Teaching and Learning programme I discovered that a lot had changed since I was a student. In the programme we talked about engaging the students in the learning process, making the classroom more “student-centred.” This was totally different from my own undergraduate days when everything used to be “lecturer-centred”. Although I may not fully agree with this total “student-centred” approach, I do see several positive aspects in it. The programme was very beneficial and introduced several new teaching strategies that I am trying to incorporate in my classes. Also, as suggested in the programme, I try to attend a few lectures of my senior colleagues. This is an excellent way to learn teaching methods in one’s own area of specialisation. It gave me an opportunity to observe student responses to various styles of lecturing and has helped me understand the dynamics of a large classroom.

The problem for me is that my teaching load, research and postgraduate student supervision, compounded by the tasks of settling in during my first year, make it difficult to participate in further development programmes. For new academics faced with the challenges of a new career, it becomes difficult to juggle various research and teaching demands. What can be done to assist new academics to learn more about teaching so they start their careers using current and effective teaching strategies? Should there be a reduction in their teaching load in the first year or two, as is common in the USA, so they can spend more time in workshops and try out different ideas? The Foundations of University Teaching and Learning programme is a good start but where do we find the time to learn further?