Felder, Richard, "Things I Wish They Had Told Me."
Chem. Engr. Education, 28(2), 108-109 (Spring 1994).
THINGS I WISH THEY HAD TOLD ME
Richard M. Felder
Department of Chemical Engineering
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7905
Most of us on college faculties learn our craft by trial-and-error. We start
teaching and doing research, make lots of mistakes, learn from some of them,
teach some more and do more research, make more mistakes and learn from them,
and gradually more or less figure out what we're doing.
However, while there's something to be said for purely experiential learning,
it's not very efficient. Sometimes small changes in the ways we do things can
yield large benefits. We may eventually come up with the changes
ourselves, but it could help both us and our students immeasurably if
someone were to suggest them early in our careers. For whatever they may be
worth to you, here are some suggestions I wish someone had given me.
- Find one or more research mentors and one or more teaching
mentors, and work closely with them for at least two years. Most faculties
have professors who excel at research or teaching or both and are willing
to share their expertise with junior colleagues, but the prevailing
culture does not usually encourage such exchanges. Find out who these
individuals are, and take advantage of what they have to offer, if possible
through collaborative research and mutual classroom observation or
- Find research collaborators who are strong in the areas in which
you are weakest. If your strength is theory, undertake some joint research
with a good experimentalist, and conversely. If you're a chemical engineer,
find compatible colleagues in chemistry or biochemistry or mathematics or
statistics or materials science. You'll turn out better research in the
short run, and you'll become a better researcher in the long run by seeing
how others work and learning some of what they know.
- Whenever you write a paper or proposal, beg or bribe colleagues
to read it and give you the toughest critique they're willing to give. Then
revise, and if the revisions were major, run the manuscript by them again to
make sure you got it right. THEN send it off. Wonderful things may start
happening to your acceptance rates.
- When a paper or proposal of yours is rejected, don't take it as
a reflection on your competence or your worth as a human being. Above all,
don't give up. Take a few minutes to sulk or swear at those obtuse
idiots who clearly missed the point of what you wrote, then revise the
manuscript, doing your best to understand and accommodate their criticisms
If the rejection left the door open a crack, send the revision
back with a cover letter summarizing how you adopted the reviewers'
suggestions and stating, respectfully, why you couldn't go along with
the ones you didn't adopt. The journal or funding agency will usually
send the revision back to the same reviewers, who will often recommend
acceptance if they believe you took their comments seriously and if your
response doesn't offend them. If the rejection slammed the door, send the
revision to another journal (perhaps a less prestigious one) or funding
- Learn to identify the students in your classes, and greet them by
name when you see them in the hall. Doing just this will cover a multitude
of sins you may commit in class. Even if you have a class of over 100
students, you can do it---use seating charts, labeled photographs, whatever
it takes. You'll be well compensated for the time and effort you expend by
the respect and effort you'll get back from them.
- When you're teaching a class, try to give the students something
active to do at least every 20 minutes. For example, have them work in small
groups to answer a question or solve a problem or think of their own
questions about the material you just
covered.(1) In long class periods (75 minutes
and up), let them get up and stretch for a minute.
Even if you're a real spellbinder, after approximately 10
minutes of straight lecturing you begin to lose a fraction of your
students---they get drowsy or bored or restless, and start reading or talking
or daydreaming. The longer you lecture, the more of them you lose. Forcing
them to be active, even if it's only for 30 seconds, breaks the pattern and
gets them back with you for another 10-20 minutes.
- After you finish making up an exam, even if you KNOW it's
straightforward and error-free, work it through completely from scratch and
note how long it takes you to do it, and get your TA's to do the same if
you have TA's. Then go back and (1) get rid of the inevitable bugs and
busywork, (2) make sure most of the test covers basic skills and no more
than 10-15% serves to separate the A's from the B's, and (3) cut down the
test so that the students have at least three times longer to work it out
than it took you to do it.
- Grade tough on homework, easier on time-bound tests. Frequently
it happens in reverse: almost anything goes on the homework, which causes the
students to get sloppy, and then they get clobbered on tests for making the
same careless errors they got away with on the homework. This is
pedagogically unsound, not to mention unfair.
- When someone asks you to do something you're not sure you want to
do---serve on a committee or chair one, attend a meeting you're not obligated
to attend, join an organization, run for an office, organize a conference,
etc.---don't respond immediately, but tell the requester that you need
time to think about it and you'll get back to him or her. Then, if you decide
that you really don't want to do it, consider politely but firmly declining.
You need to take on some of these tasks occasionally---service is part of your
professorial obligation---but no law says you have do everything anyone asks
you to do.(2)
- Create some private space for yourself and retreat to it on a
regular basis. Pick a three-hour slot once or twice a week when you don't
have class or office hours and go elsewhere---stay home, for example, or take
your laptop to the library, or sneak into the empty office of your colleague
who's on sabbatical.
It's tough to do serious writing or thinking if you're
interrupted every five minutes, which is what happens in your office. Some
people with iron wills can put a "Do not disturb!" sign outside their
office door, let their secretaries or voice mail take their calls,
and Just Do It. If you're not one of them, your only alternative is to get
out of the office. Do it regularly and watch your productivity rise.
- Do your own composing on a word processor instead of relying on
a secretary to do all the typing and correcting. If you're a lousy typist,
have the secretary type your first draft but at least do all the revising
and correcting yourself.
Getting the secretary to do everything means waiting for your
job to reach the top of the pile on his desk, waiting again when your job is
put on hold in favor of shorter and more urgent tasks, waiting yet again for
the corrections on the last version to be made, and so on as the weeks roll
merrily by. If a job is really important to you, do it yourself! It will then
get done on your time schedule, not someone else's.
- Get copies of McKeachie and Wankat and Oreovicz. Keep
one within easy reach in your office at school and the other in your home
office or bathroom. You can open either book to any page and get useful
pointers or answers to troubling questions, and you'll also get
research backing for the suggestions presented.
- When problems arise that have serious implications---academic
misconduct, for example, or a student or colleague with an apparent
psychological problem, or anything that could lead to litigation or
violence---don't try to solve them on your own. The consequences of making
mistakes could be disastrous.
There are professionals at every university---academic
advisors, trained counselors, and attorneys---with the knowledge and
experience needed to deal with almost every conceivable situation. Find
out who they are, and bring them in to either help you deal with the problem
or handle it themselves.
That's enough for starters. If you feel moved to try any of these
suggestions, I'd be grateful if you let me know what happens...and if
you've been on a faculty for a year or more, I invite you to send me some
additional ideas---tips you wish someone had given you when you were
starting out. When I get enough of them I'll put them in another column with
- W.J. McKeachie, Teaching Tips: A Guidebook for the Beginning
College Teacher, 8th Edn., Lexington, MA, D.C. Heath & Co., 1986.
- P.C. Wankat and F.S. Oreovicz, Teaching Engineering, New York,
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1. Many other ideas for active learning exercises are given in References 1 and 2.
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2. However, if your department head
or dean is the one doing the asking, it's advisable to have a good reason for saying no.
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