Reflection on Teaching Development

CUTS
Justin Zweck

I was advised to participate in CUTS by senior graduate students in the biology

department when I first entered as a graduate student. They told me that it was
relatively easy to do, and that it would give me another line on my resume,
making me more employable. They also suggested that I begin the 2 year CUTS
program after my first two years of graduate school, as we are too busy during
that period to participate in additional activities like CUTS. This proved to be
good advice in the sense that I was able to complete CUTS activities when I had
a more open schedule, being finished with my coursework and TA duties. Sadly,
however, this period also corresponded to a time when I was an RA, and not
regularly teaching classes. Nonetheless, I feel that CUTS has been very valuable
to me in that it forced me to reflect on the prior teaching I had done, and it
helped me to develop my ability for the scattered guest lectures I delivered
during my CUTS period.
I would say that I was a decent teacher prior to beginning CUTS. I understood
the importance of connecting with students. I understood the importance of
bringing a positive attitude to class. And I understood that a teacher must teach
the students who they are teaching; that is to say, instead of simply forcing
material upon the class, the teacher should have some understanding of the
students goals and background knowledge.
I had several teaching experiences before beginning CUTS. I taught ESL one on
one through the Madison Literacy Network. There I developed creative plans to
reach talented but distracted students. For example, I inserted grammatical
errors into the biography of a students favorite author, and asked him to read
the biography and correct the errors. Similarly, while teaching English in Brasil, I
made vocabulary and sentence structure activities correspond to local places
and national events, like the World Cup Soccer tournament.
I enjoyed these teaching experiences tremendously, but I was constructing all of
my activities from thin air. I had no background or reference to use. I simply
attempted to summon whatever creativity I had in order to best reach the
students. While I feel this experience was useful in that it forced me to work
hard and get out of my comfort zone, I now know that a more formal training,
such as what is provided through CUTS, would have made my teaching not only
better but also easier.

I would have to wait some time before having a chance to employ my CUTS
training, or to even participate in CUTS for that matter though. First I became a
teaching assistant for introductory biology at SLU, during the first two years of
my graduate program. For the sake of consistency, TAs were obligated to follow
the same lesson plan and lecture, which was developed by others. As such we
missed out on critical elements of teaching relating to the design of lectures,
assignments, and courses.
We did gain experience in delivering lectures and in interacting with students in
class, in office hours, and through email, however. This meant that I still had the
opportunity to develop my ability to work on the timing of my speech during
lectures, and to work on things like moving vertically and horizontally through
the classroom while teaching. Most importantly, I realized that teaching is
something a person gets better at when they do it regularly. I never hit my
sweet spot until about 3 weeks into the semester, when I knew my students well
enough, and when I felt a comfortable rhythm with my instruction.
After a
while, I became adept at troubleshooting mistakes before they would happen. I
did this by sending reminder emails about parts of the grading rubric that were
easy to miss. I also learned how to notice when students were too shy to bring
up their struggles.
This brings me to the next phase of my teaching development, CUTS. CUTS has
been very valuable to me in that it exposed me to key concepts in pedagogy.
Things like flipped classrooms and think-pair-share are now part of my
vocabulary. I would have had to hunt around at the library and on the web to
find these concepts otherwise, and Im sure it would have been a less efficient
process for me. I learned a lot at the CUTS seminars. I especially enjoyed the
Using Social Media in the Classroom seminar, as I had previously felt that I
wasnt a person who would naturally consider using social media in this way.
After the seminar, I felt enthusiastic about teaching with technology, and Ive
enjoyed coming up with potential activities for the learning with technology
module. These include using Pinterest to have students create study cards for
the class, and using Twitter to have a mock debate on species concepts.
I havent had a chance to implement these techniques into a real class setting
yet, but I have used concepts I learned as a guest lecturer in the course Plants
and Fungi. I wanted to break up the 75 minute lecture with an in class activity,
and I wanted to encourage small group discussions. Additionally, because I
knew the students could access the lecture online some days before class, I felt
that this could in some ways approach a flipped classroom, in the sense that
the introductory material would be viewed prior, while a more detailed
discussion would take place in class. The topic of the days lecture was stems

and leaves, so I devised an in class activity in which groups would describe how
stem and leaf anatomy might differ between aquatic and terrestrial plants. I
also asked them to draw any predicted differences at various levels (i.e. from
cellular to whole plant). Finally, I asked each group to present their ideas to the
rest of the class.
I feel that this activity was a great success, not only because it fostered critical
thinking, but also because it reinforced the basic concepts in an active way. This
activity closely aligned with the teaching philosophy I prepared for CUTS. In my
teaching philosophy, I state that I hope to foster critical thinking, and to transfer
ownership of the material into the students hands. I want students in my class
to know and feel that they are already scientists, and that they can already do
what scientists do- to take what they know and make testable predictions. It
doesnt matter if youre a freshman student or a tenured professor, the overall
process is the same, and it is much more fun to engage what might otherwise
seem like boring material (stems and leaves) in this way.
Im thankful for all of the resources that CUTS has provided, including the
reading list. I chose Teaching What You Dont Know, by Therese Hutson for my
book choice. I havent really had a chance to implement this books lessons so
far, as my guest lecturing positions have all been teaching what I do know
(Floristic Taxonomy, Plants and Fungi, Evolution), but I wanted to read this book
because I suspect that in any university teaching job I get I will have to teach
some courses that dont lie within my expertise. The very first pages of this
book rang true to the stories Ive heard from people a few steps ahead of me in
the field. In fact, I recently heard a friend talking about getting a job at a small
liberal arts college, and being suddenly asked to teach physics even though she
is a biologist! I think this book is a good preparation for what realistically might
come, and I appreciated that they used examples of real people at real
universities.
This book also consolidated what the university teaching
experience is like, and this was important to me because I had previously been
trying to get a glimpse of my potential future through 5 minute snippets of
conversation with various people.
Reading this book helped me to articulate the difference between being a
content expert and a teaching expert. This concept also aligns with portions of
my teaching philosophy, in which I mention that I dont expect an instructor to
be a perfect expert, who is totally knowledgeable in every way. In this way, I
feel that understanding how to teach what I dont know will also make me better
at teaching what I do know, because it will simply make me a better teacher
over all. Ive had my fair share of Rousseau Moments even when I was giving
a lecture on a topic I knew very well, and the emphasis on getting feedback

from your students is just plain good advice, no matter what your level of
expertise in the subject is.
Looking forward, what I really want most is simply to find an opportunity to put
what Ive learned into practice on a regular basis. CUTS has provided me with
such a great learning opportunity, but it hasnt come with a corresponding
opportunity for implementation. These we have to seek out on our own, and our
options are quite frankly limited or at least variable depending on our
department. Thus the primary thing that I need to progress in my development
as a teacher is a regular teaching job. My teaching experiences thus far have
confirmed my love for the discipline, and motivated me to continue to grow. My
experience with CUTS has exposed me to new ideas, and its helped me to
articulate ideas which I had developed as a teacher, but which were only
floating somewhere in the grey area of my brain. Im thankful to have
participated in CUTS, and Im looking forward to the teaching that may come.