What they didn't teach you in grad school

The Assistant Professor Blog

Teaching

There are real cognitive constraints on how much new information students can remember and for how long. Covering a high volume of material at a break-neck pace stacks the deck against knowledge retention by producing learning conditions that favor forgetting.

2 reasons why pre-tenure faculty should downsize their syllabi

Teaching

If you’re devoting a disproportionate amount of your limited time to teaching, and you are at an institution where research productivity is the most important factor in tenure and promotion decisions, you’re basically working yourself out of a job. Can we all just agree that this is not the way to go?

Are you spending too much time on grading as a new professor?

In my first two years on the tenure track, I worked all of the time, but usually not on the right things.

I spent way too much time on teaching, and sacrificed my evenings and weekends (and sleep) to research. I didn’t exercise, or pursue hobbies, or make friends, or eat well. I was stressed, and exhausted, and lonely. Plus, I developed a back problem from too many hours hunched over my laptop! Ouch!

I know now that it doesn’t have to be this way. You can earn tenure without working yourself into the ground. Instead of repeating my mistakes, I want to help you learn from them.

Hey, assistant professors. I've been there...

I'm Becca. 

Wasn’t tenure the Holy Grail of academe? I had made it. Why wasn’t I overjoyed?

Tenure and the Arrival Fallacy

Chronicle of higher ed

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