I came across this following a recommendation from a colleague at Kings College, London. Harvard University (in the US) has a centre for teaching and learning which provides extensive advice for people teaching in HE. I think the ‘in the classroom’ section is particularly relevant for PhD students. It begins with a discussion of building rapport with students, making the point that the relationship with your students is crucial. This is something that we’ll be discussing in Establishing a Teaching Persona, as this might be a bit different for PhD students to someone employed as a permanent lecturer – the website includes the advice to establish your credentials, which might seem a bit more intimidating as a PhD student.

There’s a useful section on ‘classroom contracts’ and how to negotiate and establish your expectations for students from the outset, especially if you’re going to be seeing this group of students on a regular basis. A good point is made about being explicit – don’t forget that although, as a PhD student, you are likely to be very used to HE and what it involves in your subject, many students might not be aware of how teaching and learning works, and so it’s important to be upfront about how things will work in your classroom.

The sections on ‘active learning’ and ‘a catalogue of instructional strategies’ might give you some ideas for how to teach the material on your module. As a PhD student, you have a varying amount of freedom to choose what you’re doing – I know that some of you might be given slides by the module leader which you have to use. Nevertheless, there’s often some opportunity to slightly modify the way you teach what you’ve been given – if only by adding in some activities or short discussion sections.

I found the discussion on ‘technology and student distraction’ interesting, as I know people are often concerned that they might be teaching to a room of heads bent over phones or laptops. This acknowledges the issues with the distractions of technology – as multi-tasking is a myth, using technology involves a constant switching between your device and what’s going on in the room. Nevertheless, I’ve found that technology can be a great aid to teaching – I’ve found the online noticeboard Padlet really useful for collecting anonymous contributions to discussions (the anonymity means that some students will contribute who wouldn’t have wanted to shout out in class, and answers can be easily shared and compared). Frustratingly, Padlet is now generating income through subscriptions, so they’ve limited the amount of Padlets you can create using the free version. The site notes that technology can also be needed for students with disabilities – similarly, I’ve taught many international students who will often be using their phones to translate words they don’t understand so it becomes an invaluable aid to learning (few of these students would have the confidence to stop and ask me what I mean directly).