New perspectives on teaching and learning

As part of a Fulbright grant supporting my sabbatical to Portugal, I taught a "Topics in Astrophysics" course to master's students.  Going outside my usual comfort zone was good for me, and will help me be a better teacher when I go back to UC Davis.

One thing I take back is a renewed appreciation for the fact that each student starts from a unique place.  Having taught at the same university for nine years, it becomes second nature to assume that a student who passed certain courses understands certain concepts thoroughly.  I think I become a bit judgmental when I encounter a student who "should" (according to they courses they have passed) know something but doesn't.  As a fresh arrival in Lisbon, I had no preconceptions about students' prior knowledge.  This helped me create a better learning environment in general, and it also helped me "coach" each student without judging---an attitude I want to maintain when I get back to my regular teaching duties.  Of course, I still have to judge when I assign grades---but not before then.

I also have a renewed appreciation that being a student isn't easy. On my first day in the classroom, I felt like an outsider.  What are the expectations?  Will I crash and burn?  Students deal with these thoughts all the time, and with reason, because so often they are being graded.  When they come to a university they have to learn the system, navigate the courses, work and manage their finances, and learn to function in a new city.  I gained new respect for students by having to do some of these things as well.

Being a visiting professor teaching a topics course was liberating---nothing I did would be considered a precedent in future years, nor did I try to follow any template from previous years.  I tried lots of new things.  To prevent running the course completely outside the comfort zone of the Portuguese students, I just consulted with them rather than wonder what they would think.  I do this back home too, but this experience will help me do more.

Of course, I hope the students got something out of it as well. Having regular homework was apparently an unusual experience for them.  They initially thought it took too much time to do so much homework, but they began to appreciate that doing the homework is the only way to really learn.  But this dynamic worked only because I slowed the pace of the class to make sure they really had time to digest all the lessons they could learn from the homework---and that in turn was made possible by fact that this was a "topics" course without any predefined list of topics to cover.  So I don't know right now what I can change when I teach a more standard courses. But I am changed.

Not one of the ideas here is new, but they tend to fade when I teach over and over in the same setting.  Teaching in an entirely new environment was a great experience that will freshen up my teaching when I go home.  I highly recommend it, and I thank the Portuguese Fulbright Commission for supporting it.