My first teaching experience

(Image adapted from http://www.ryerson.ca)

I decided a long time back I wanted to be in research. But a big question has been that given a choice where would I like to pursue it - in industry or academics? Though the second option has always seemed more attractive in many respects, it has also appeared daunting primarily due to my inexperience at teaching and the high expectations that I hold from those who teach.

Having carried out my Ph.D. at a national research laboratory in India,  as opposed to a university, I was not required to do any teaching assistantship. During my postdoctoral research at Uppsala University, Sweden too it was a similar situation. However, before my tenure ended I managed to take a month long Teacher's Training Course (TTC) which turned out to be particularly useful for a newbie like me.

Quite early on we had a practical session in which every participant was video recorded for a couple of minutes while giving a talk designed for teaching a class. At the end the videos were shown to us and constructive criticisms were meted out by the group and our instructor. Mostly the comments were positive and everybody thought that I engaged the audience and communicated well which surprised them as I am not the most talkative person. I too noticed this comfort level through the video which to a small extent dispelled my fears.

As a final assignment each participant got to be mentored by a professor in their department. One of the suggestions I was given was to somehow get myself involved in teaching by for instance, self-designing and giving a short course. So after I joined Brown University I proposed to give a series of Electronic Structure Theory lectures in our group. With my supervisor's approval a special time and day was reserved for these classes.

I remember reading on FemaleScienceProfessor that the initial years of teaching are not easy. It takes a while to get the flow, guess what questions students might ask, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and hone yourself. Indeed moments before I was to teach the first time I was a bit jittery. But as days progressed I felt relaxed. I gave seven lectures in total. A couple of them didn't go as distinctly well as I had wanted to. When that would happen I would try to make up for it in the next lecture and go over the points that I felt I hadn't conveyed properly enough. As our group is a mix of undergrads, grads and postdocs with differing backgrounds in engineering and chemistry there was never a lecture when I wasn't asked a question. I took this positively as a sign that they were being attentive and taking the lecture series seriously.

To be honest, I did put in a lot of effort. The classes that were given using the blackboard were backed up by providing lecture notes. On other occasions I gave presentations and sent them out only after the lecture was over. Being Electronic Structure Theory this needed typing numerous equations and checking that all notations were consistent. I am sure that this will hold me in good stead in the future. It could definitely be a decent starting point for a longer course.

This entire process gave me an idea of what it would really be like to teach. It has instilled in me a certain confidence that I lacked earlier. I also realised how rewarding it could be when one of the undergrads said that he felt inspired to take a quantum mechanics course in the next semester at the university. :)