Teaching Matters: A Guide for Graduate Students

by Aeron Haynie, Stephanie Spong

A practical and evidence-based teaching guide for graduate students across all fields. In a book written directly for graduate students that includes graduate student voices and experiences, Aeron Haynie and Stephanie Spong establish why good teaching matters and offer a guide to helping instructors-in-training create inclusive and welcoming classrooms. Teaching Matters is informed by recent research while being grounded in the personal perspectives of current and past graduate students in many disciplines. Graduate students can use this book independently to prepare to teach their courses, or it can be used as a guide for a teaching practicum. With a just-in-time checklist for graduate students who are assigned to teach courses right before the semester starts, step-by-step directions for writing a compelling teaching philosophy, and an emphasis on teaching well regardless of modality, Teaching Matters will remain relevant for graduate students throughout their careers.

Genres: Academic

240 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2022

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teaching Matters is one of the best and most practical books on teaching that I have read. It has a slow start, but once you make it past chapters 1 and 2, authors Aeron Haynie and Stephanie Spong waste absolutely no space with the tired platitudes that often afflict this genre (e.g. "just be more approachable!"). Instead, each chapter is densely packed with specific actions that you can take to improve your teaching, and why these actions will provide better outcomes for you and your students.

This book is the complete toolkit for anyone teaching college-level courses. It provides templates for assignment rubrics, course grading schemes, designing an entire course, and even for writing a teaching statement for the job search. It also offers minute-by-minute outlines for what to do on the first day of a course, or for structuring a typical class period, and several appendices highlight additional resources. Bulleted lists of implementable ideas are also interspersed throughout each chapter; these action items are what successfully bridge the gap between the theory of teaching and what to actually do in the classroom.

The final chapter, "Cultivating Well-Being," on its own makes this book a must-read for graduate students (even graduate students who don't have a teaching position). This chapter weaves together some powerful insights about how imposter syndrome is connected to and exacerbated by the hidden curriculum of academia, and how feeling like an imposter can often result in two common but opposite responses: overpreparing or procrastinating (and how both of these responses can undermine personal perceptions of success). This chapter also tackles many other issues and dilemmas often facing graduate students, including: managing the physical stress response when receiving hostile emails, recognizing that just a bit more 'grit' or 'self-control' won't actually make it possible to work non-stop for years on end, and why not to postpone 'life' (e.g. your health, your hobbies, your relationships, etc.) until after graduate school.

Teaching Matters is a thoughtful and comprehensive guide for teaching college-level courses and for thriving as a graduate student.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great resource for graduate students new to teaching. It covers a number of the most important topics in a thoughtful and well-sourced way and encourages instructors to approach their classes from a place of care and inclusion. I've read a lot of other more specialized texts on teaching, so there wasn't necessarily a lot that was new to me in this book, but this is still an excellent resource for folks wanting to learn more about the craft of teaching. There aren't many books that are oriented specifically to the needs and responsibilities of graduate students, so it's wonderful to see a text that targets this under-served niche.

[Ren Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short and accessible primer for graduate students who are beginning to shape their teacher identities and shape their practices. Great resources and templates throughout the book and structured so it’s easy to go back and reference them.

Would also recommend for professionals who have to give workshops or learning & development trainings. As many of the skills and tools cross over with many professional contexts.

[Morgane Golan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important and valuable book for any grad student, regardless of field, who is teaching at the college level. This book is so well-written and the advice therein is both easy to understand and relatively easy to apply in the classroom. I learned a lot, and especially resonated with the final chapter on cultivating wellbeing.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and accessible book. I'm going to start using this for my seminar course for graduate students that prepares them for teaching. I wish I had read a book like this when I was a graduate TA.