Developing your teaching
Advice for tutors and demonstrators interested in developing their teaching to an enhanced level, including students that have been awarded a Principal’s Career Development Scholarship (Teaching).
Important issues to consider
Finding opportunities: you need to work out with your school what opportunities are available, and how you put yourself forward for these.
Check with your supervisor: the Code of Practice on Tutoring and Demonstrating states that you need to check with your supervisor before you commit yourself to taking on a particular set of responsibilities.
Expanding your roles and responsibilities
In general, developing your teaching beyond the basics over the course of your three or so years will almost certainly involve:
Expanding your range of teaching roles to include demonstrating, tutoring, one-to-one advising, marking of coursework, limited roles in supervising students’ projects, and occasional lecturing.
Increasing the depth of your responsibilities to include having more input in planning classes, reviewing or designing new course content, taking on roles to support newer peers, and being of assistance to your course organiser in new ways
How you expand and develop your specific role will depend on what opportunities are offered in your school.
Proactively collecting and engaging with feedback
There are a number of ways you can creatively and proactively collect feedback on your teaching, and engage with this feedback actively. Starting points are:
- Different ways of collecting feedback on your teaching
- Read chapter 10 ‘Collecting Feedback on Teaching’ from the tutors and demonstrators handbook
- ‘Planning and Reviewing Tutorials’ workshop
Taking part in external development activity focused on teaching
Local and IAD support: a combination of peer support, individual support from academic staff and induction courses is offered in part by your school and in part by us here in the IAD, to opt into if and when it is thought to be of benefit.
- Find out about school-based support
- All Institute for Academic Development support for tutors and demonstrators
Accrediting your teaching: this could eventually also lead towards a direct application to the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) for accreditation of teaching experiences.
- Higher Education Academy: online information on teaching accreditation
- Support for applicants to the Higher Education Academy from the University of Edinburgh
PgCert in Academic Practice: more experienced tutors and demonstrators may be considering participation in the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP). For many good reasons though, eligibility for participation in this course normally excludes current postgraduate students who wish to develop their teaching. Note that you may also be required to pay fees for participation in this course.
Who to contact for further advice
All queries about University-wide matters related to tutoring and demonstrating can be addressed to:
This article was published on Aug 9, 2012