Talking Teaching for Your Future (and the Job Market)

Workshop by James Lang

Thursday, April 26, 2018: 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM. Location: Cahill, Hameetman Auditorium

As graduate students and postdoctoral fellows preparing your application materials for the job market and meeting with faculty during interviews and on-campus visits, you will have multiple opportunities to talk about teaching. This process provides you a unique moment in which to craft a teaching philosophy and approach that will continue to serve you as you embark on your academic career. Drawing upon my experience on search committees at a small liberal arts college, as well my long-term work with new and continuing faculty members in the U.S. and internationally, I will guide you to talk (and think) effectively about teaching during the job search process and beyond. An initial presentation will be followed by plenty of time for questions and conversation addressing your specific interests and cases.

Biography: James M. Lang is the author of five books, the most recent of which are Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016), Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (Harvard University Press, 2013), and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching (Harvard UP, 2008). Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education; his work has been appearing in the Chronicle since 1999. His book reviews and public scholarship on higher education have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and Time. He edits a new series of books on teaching and learning in higher education for West Virginia University Press. 

Lang has conducted workshops on teaching for faculty at more than a hundred colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad, and consulted for the United Nations on the development of teaching materials in ethics and integrity for college faculty. In September of 2016 he received a Fulbright Specialist grant to work with three universities in Colombia on the creation of a MOOC on teaching and learning in STEM education. He has a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, an MA in English from St. Louis University, and a Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. Lang currently serves as a professor of English and the director of the D'Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Part of TeachWeek Caltech, a campus-wide celebration of teaching and learning, featuring events and discussions with Caltech faculty and students, as well as distinguished guest presenters. All events are open to the entire Caltech community.

Thanks to the Twenty-Seven Foundation for supporting this TeachWeek panel discussion, as well as sponsoring other events engaging Caltech faculty and students in new perspectives on teaching and learning.

For more information, please email ctlo@caltech.edu.