How to excel at ‘teaching the teachers’: Opinion

“What happens to us faculty, who are often skilled teachers, when we are asked to deliver a workshop for our peers [and] our default mode [is] almost always a lecture?” asks Melissa Nicolas. To answer this question, the author points to an “oft-told tale: just as most of us are not taught how to teach, almost none of us are taught how to teach the teachers.” To remedy the problem of poorly designed faculty workshops, Nicolas recommends that faculty or institutions seek out coaches who are practiced in workshop execution, the alignment of session outcomes with session activities, and similar areas. The author adds that these coaches could also be made available to instructors at institutional centres for teaching and learning. If a school lacks such a resource, instructors may consider accessing these coaches on an on-call consultancy basis for individual or group sessions. Inside Higher Ed (International)