In at the Deep End: Walking into the First Class

There are some types of work that you can only learn on the job, and university teaching is one of them. Luckily we also have professional training now to help us prepare, but even so it’s the practical work that makes sense of all the pedagogical theory and brings it to life. It’s only in the lecture theatre or seminar room that you find out if you love or hate the job and if it’s for you.

I thoroughly enjoyed training with others on the inSTIL course and hoped I’d enjoy the work at least as much. As it turned out, teaching is more pleasurable and fulfilling, more challenging but also with unexpected rewards. The inSTIL training helped overcome the difficulties right from the first day.

Although I had my first class well prepared – a seminar on Shakespeare’s Sonnet ‘Why is my verse so barren of new pride’ – there was also an important lesson for me to learn and that was the importance of the staff room and talking with other teachers. I had two seminars to teach each week on the same course, one late morning and one in the early afternoon, with an office hour in between shared with colleagues.

It can be difficult encouraging students to talk and I hadn’t realised just how tough it could be. From the set reading list I’d chosen the sonnet because I knew it would be a familiar form from A level study and Shakespeare would have been covered. There’s so much that students could confidently identify and yet they held back.

Seminar groups are larger now than they used to be, with 15 students being typical compared to no more than 6 when I was studying and sometimes only 2. This can make a seminar feel like a lecture to students, or like a class, so I needed to find ways to open a discussion. This didn’t happen in my first group and I was left doing most of the talking and asking questions, wanting volunteers rather than picking out people to answer, which can be intimidating and a bit too like school.

There were a few students who were enthusiastic about answering but I knew that wouldn’t work long-term as they’d start to feel awkward about being the only ones to participate and the others could feel negative towards them, or could relax into not taking part. I also needed to hear from all of the students so I could tell whether or not they understood and to gauge their level.

My office hour helped enormously, giving time to compare notes with the other tutors, especially as they had already taught before. It had surprised me that some students didn’t come to the seminar, but this is a typical problem for all tutors and one that I’d need to address in the coming weeks. The problem of so many silent students is also a challenge for all tutors.

The solution is quite simple and I should have remembered it from the inSTIL course on small group teaching, but I had assumed students would be more forthcoming and wanting to join in. The other tutors told me that they always divide students into small groups to discuss and I decided to do it in my afternoon seminar. This is the single most important tip I was given and would give to others.

The difference was extraordinary. I was concerned in case breaking into small groups a number of times during the session would make it difficult to cover all the points that needed to be understood, but I found it can be done. For students to enjoy a seminar they need to have their chance to talk and get their ideas across, and once they were in groups of 2 or 3 they all had lively discussions. At the end they could feed back to me and the whole class, with the most confident ones willing to do it and the shy ones also willing to add a comment if prompted.

From the second week onwards it was easier because the students knew which poems we’d be looking at and I could give them points to consider. I still had the same number of notes prepared every week so I could set questions to consider after giving brief talks throughout the session. It takes a lot of encouragement to draw students out and to validate their ideas and as the term progresses they express some quite stunning insights. It’s exciting to be teaching them at the point when they’re moving up a level from school to university and changing significantly in their personalities and academic ability.