The new year seems like a good opportunity to pass along some thoughts on how Geosciences graduate students and post-docs can improve their competitiveness for academic positions. I say this in the context of having read more than 100 applications for faculty positions and perhaps 20 or more postdoctoral research proposals over the last 12 months, and seeing how some applications rise to the top of the pile.

One of the best things you can do is to make use of whatever teaching/learning centers exist at your university for training new faculty in how to teach. These have various names. At Boise State we have a Center for Teaching and Learning (https://ctl.boisestate.edu/). Most centers include some component of pedagogical research, and may have research in their title. But they’re generally independent of the College of Education. You might ask your department faculty, especially the assistant professors, what resources exist for improving teaching. Our CTL is excellent, so what you see on the Boise State CTL website can give you an idea of what to look for in others.

The simplest first step is to find workshops or discussion groups that can help guide course development, classroom management (see footnote), and methods that can foster inclusiveness in the classroom (some faculty searches specifically ask for an inclusivity statement). Typically each workshop takes 1-2 hours, and can include in-person workshops or on-line stuff. Choose whatever interests you - we had one on 3-D printing, which benefits instruction of tech-savvy students (think crystal models). Unless you’re currently looking for a job, attending something once a month provides a *lot* of help. So I’m not talking about a huge time investment. There can be many opportunities - our CTL offers several per week. There can also be additional opportunities for lengthier workshops. These are good, too, but you should clear that with your advisor/supervisor first.

As you may well know, SERC and NAGT have a lot of this stuff, too (https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/index.html, https://nagt.org/index.html). But I find talking with people is a better first step.

Some programs offer a certificate for completing a certain number of workshops that address some broad topic of concern. Ours is called the Build Certificate - you can find it under Programs on the CTL website or go directly to https://ctl.boisestate.edu/build/.

Most graduate students and post-docs have limited opportunities for teaching classes, i.e. being the instructor of record. But everyone TAs, so to demonstrate commitment to teaching, you need to do something more. If you’re not allowed to teach a class or a piece of a class, first of all say that in your application, and then show that you made an effort to learn how to teach. And that means getting help in developing a comprehensive syllabus (more important and harder than you might think), developing in-class student-centered exercises and active learning techniques (more than think-pair-share), learning about assessment techniques (not just problem sets, labs, quizzes and exams), and, most importantly, learning how to design a course.

Besides the more mercenary reasons (this helps me get a job...), if you’re truly interested in academia, you should be invested in being a good instructor. Your first classes will probably be crappy - mine sure were, anyway. Don’t be too discouraged if you try something and it flops. My problem was that my courses had design flaws from the start. There’s no question that my students learned a lot from my classes, and were generally enthusiastic and appreciative. But they could have learned better, and I now need to go back and fix the mistakes. You’re so much better off if you design a class well the first time.

See whether you can be involved in teaching part of a class, preferably holding down some significant portion (e.g. a couple weeks or a unit of an intro or upper division class, including labs). It's crucial that you actually design whatever you do. And you need to say that in an application. If you’re just delivering someone else’s stuff, you’re being a drone. Likely in more ways than one.

If you want to focus on any particular classes, search committees like to see experience teaching lower-level classes. Upper level classes are fine, too, and they give better flexibility for trying out different teaching methods. But most people are inherently good at teaching their own specialties. A week or so as a field camp instructor can be a big bonus. This doesn’t have to be geology field camp, by the way, there are other types of extended field experiences.

The bottom line is that, like marriage, if you’re interested in academia, you should be committed (Ha! - in the good way, not the bad way). CTLs are the best place to start.

Last, I’m not necessarily recommending that anyone cut back a lot on their research program. Unless we’re hiring a teaching position, research quality absolutely weighs the most heavily for me, probably ≥90%. But not every search is wedded to a specific field (the competition can be broader than you think), and there are many good researchers out there (competition can be stiff). I’ve seen teaching quality impact who we interview for positions. It’s not usually the case, but besides the fact that other colleges/universities place a heavier emphasis on teaching, even for us that last 10% has made a difference. And your first task is to get that interview. An hour or two out of a month for workshops (~1% of your time) and/or a couple weeks of real teaching out of a few years (≤1%, counting prep time) isn’t all that much, but it adds up and can help.

Footnote: The best tip I learned this year is how to get the attention of students, without raising your voice. Tell them at the beginning of the course that if you hold up your hand, they should stop talking and raise their hands, too. Very quickly, most students stop talking and raise their hands. And you know what happens next – there’s nothing so effective at getting you to stop talking as having complete silence around you (“Why is everyone so quiet? Are they looking at me?” Answer: Yes). There are other techniques, but this is a good one, and it works in any-sized class.