Teaching as If Learning Matters: Pedagogies of Becoming Next Generation Faculty

Teaching is an essential skill in becoming a faculty member in any institution of higher education. Yet how is that skill actually acquired by graduate students? Teaching as if Learning Matters collects first-person narratives from graduate students and new PhDs that explore how the skills required to teach at a college level are developed. It examines the key issues that graduate students face as they learn to teach effectively when in fact they are still learning and being taught.

Featuring contributions from over thirty graduate students from a variety of disciplines at Indiana University, Teaching as if Learning Matters allows these students to explore this topic from their own unique perspectives. They reflect on the importance of teaching to them personally and professionally, telling of both successes and struggles as they learn and embrace teaching for the first time in higher education.

Jennifer Meta Robinson is Professor of Practice in the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University and Co-Director of IU’s Graduate Certificate on College Pedagogy. She is author (with James Robert Farmer) of Selling Local: Why Local Food Movements Matter (IUP, 2017). Her edited books include (with Lelila Monaghan and Jane E. Goodman) A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings, Second Edition.

Valerie Dean O’Loughlin is Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Education at Indiana University School of Medicine. She is author (with Michael McKinley and Elizabeth Pennefather-O’Brien) of Human Anatomy, Fifth Edition.

Katherine D. Kearns is Associate Vice Provost for Student Development and Director of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs in the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Health Sciences at Indiana University.

Laura Plummer directs the Scholarly Writing Program, under the auspices of the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, at Indiana University.