I’m writing this in my final week working at City. I’ve loved my time here, and especially working with PhD researchers to develop their teaching. This blog will be continued by my colleagues in the academic team in LEaD (possibly more regularly!) so there’ll be more resources and discussion of teaching here in the future.

Nevertheless, I thought this might be a good opportunity to offer a final piece of advice around teaching, and it’s actually the same advice that I’ve been giving the whole time I’ve been teaching in HE – to read more fiction.

My own teaching journey began by teaching literature while I was a DPhil student myself, so the applicability of this advice is obvious for students whose course revolves around reading fiction. I then moved into teaching academic writing to a range of students, and it might also seem fairly logical that all kinds of reading will unconsciously develop your writing ability. But what has reading fiction got to do with teaching?

Well, there’s been lots of research around how reading fictional stories can develop empathy (see, for example Stansfield and Bunce, 2014; Tamir et al, 2016; Oatley, 2016). And I am a firm believer that empathy, and compassion are the most important attributes of effective teachers.

At its heart, teaching and learning is about connecting with people. Of course, there’s practical considerations about how to cover the material on the module, and what activities are beneficial to engage students. But all the structure around teaching and learning is about connecting with people – planning, using learning outcomes and constructive alignment are all about connecting with who your students are at the start of the course (what do they know? how do they learn?) and who they will be during the module (what new things will they be able to do? how will you support them doing these?). And connecting with people is all about empathy.

So, to develop empathy and compassion – for your students, and for yourself as a teacher (because it’s a hard job at times): read fiction.

Read fiction that makes you laugh. Read fiction that makes you cry. Read fiction that inspires you.

When I used to commute into City, I had a very long train journey and so lots of opportunities for reading fiction. Lately, I’ve struggled to find the time or headspace to get into anything demanding – if you’re feeling the same, I really recommend young-adult fiction which is often a bit shorter and easier to get into (I’ve recently enjoyed books by Jenny Downham and Holly Bourne).

It can take a bit of effort to get back into the reading habit, and it can feel like there’s other things that you could be doing that are more important, but reading fiction definitely makes a difference for me and positively influences my teaching – I hope it benefits you too.

I thought some of you might be interested in  Postgraduate Pedagogies, a new, open-access journal dedicated to showcasing the unique contribution that Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) bring to Higher Education.  

To celebrate the launch, there’s an event on Tuesday 29th June, 4-5 pm BST (via Zoom). All are welcome and the link to sign up is here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/postgraduate-pedagogies-launch-event-tickets-157948416967 

 As well as offering GTAs a space to reflect on and discuss their teaching practice, the journal aims to provide GTAs with opportunities for scholarly development and experience in the field of education through authoring contributions, engaging in the peer review process, and running the journal. It is founded on an ethos of partnership between GTAs and staff who work with GTAs. 

 The overarching themes of the first issue cover role and identity, relationships and partnerships, and implications for GTA teaching. 

This journal might make useful reading, as well as being something you might like to contribute to.

This is just to let you know that as part of City’s Festival of Research, my colleague Jane Secker and I will be running a game called the Publishing Trap – tomorrow, 12th May, 3-4:30pm.

This interactive session is based on an educational boardgame, called the Publishing Trap, which has been shifted to playing online as a team game. The session will help you to navigate the  policies on copyright and open access publishing and identify the implications for your own research. It will also enable you to make decisions about the best way to communicate your ideas and build on the creations of others in the context of shifting funding conditions and the changing world of scholarly publishing. Find out more about the Publishing Trap but sign up for a fun way of learning about scholarly communication as an early career researcher.

The workshop takes 1.5 hours and is played using break-out rooms on Zoom.

You can sign up here: https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/2021/05/city-doctoral-college-festival-of-research

Hi

As a PhD student at City, you’ve been subscribed to this new blog, aimed at any PhD students who are teaching or interested in teaching in the future. I hope you’ll find the content and ideas useful – the blog will be added to on a regular basis.

I’d also like to hear from you, so there’s a specific ‘ideas and questions’ section where you can share your thoughts and reflections about teaching, your ideas and suggestions about things that have worked well, and also ask any questions that you might have about teaching, or for feedback on something that didn’t go so well. If you’d like to contribute to this, please email me (jessica.hancock@city.ac.uk) and I can add you as a contributor. Or, if you’d like to stay anonymous, you can email me and I can post on your behalf.

If you’re not interested in the blog, you can unsubscribe and then you won’t hear from me again!

Jessica, Lecturer in Educational Development, LEaD