How to be a Professor

Wendy C. Kasten, Ph.D., Professor Emerita

Kent State University – Kent, Ohio, USA.

Overview:

Are you new to college teaching? This course is for new and developing instructors/professors whether at the community college, a four-year- institution, whether at the undergraduate or graduate level.

Many profs enter the academy with new positions, assigned to teach courses, and get little support for how to go about it.

This course is just for this instance!

College teaching can be very rewarding. Any experienced professor will admit to mistakes early in their career, and that they became more experienced with time, and consequently taught more effectively and with fewer problems (at least most of the time.

This course is presented in PowerPoint, with examples. Topics covered include:

• How to deal with student questions you cannot answer;
• How to plan and create a syllabus;
• Different kinds of assignments to gauge student learning;
• What’s different in online learning;
• How to get feedback during a course;
• How to deal with disgruntled students who challenge grades;
• How to deal with difficult students in general;
• How to deal with course evaluations of your teaching;
• What to do with suspected academic dishonesty;
• What to do if someone pressures you to change a grade.