Currently reading: Post (2011) “Trial by Hire: The Seven Stages of Learning to Teach in Higher Education”

I like the “trial by hire” title! And the whole article is fun to read. It’s a bit similar to Kugel (1993)’s “how professors develop as teachers”, in that Post (2011) describes a typical development as a teacher through stages based on a few interviews and a phenomenological approach:

1. Warming: Even before starting to work at university, most future university teachers have developed positive attitudes towards learning and higher education, often from early childhood on, and often in supportive environments where they were socialized into and were given to develop a love of learning
2. Forming: During graduate school, teachers learn how to be academics in their discipline and form professional identities, but this is as researchers and not as teachers
3. Informing: Also called “I’m talking as fast as I can“. When teachers first start teaching, they often feel that they need to deliver as much information as possible to students, and it is very important to them to be on top of the content all the time. Personal teaching styles also start to develop during this stage
4. Storming: After an adjustment period, it turns out that things are not as easy as teachers thought. For example, the conflicting demands of teaching and research need to be balanced. Grading assessments is frustrating, especially when students “still didn’t get it!” and power imbalances between teachers and students play out. Student assessments of teaching are adding stress. Responsibility towards students can feel overwhelming, and the role as teachers needs to be figured out.
5. Performing: At this stage, teachers see students as audience that requires more than just content delivery, for example humor, storytelling, props and artifacts, integrating student experiences and interests in the show, making tasks and questions interesting and innovative.
6. Reforming: Now, teachers start to wonder how students actually learn, and this can result in dramatic changes in the teaching style.
7. Transforming: At this stage, teachers are self-aware as teachers, can describe their teaching approach, and start openly discussing their teaching even in public forums.

The model is meant as a starting point for discussions that can also help teachers to locate themselves and consider directions for development, but also for academic developers to notice that a one-size-fits-all most likely does not fit anyone. I don’t know if I would go so far as the “seven-stage assessment program” as recommended, but it is definitely important to consider what kind of development opportunities fit teachers in different stages of their career.

I like that this model starts out long before teachers start teaching, because a lot of our attitudes towards and assumptions about teaching are set long before we reach university. So it would be interesting to discuss it in comparison to Kugel (1993) as a reading in our courses! Maybe this one is more suitable for early career teachers, and Kugel for people who have already moved through more stages and therefore can better relate to higher stages?

Post, P. A. (2011). Trial by Hire: The Seven Stages of Learning to Teach in Higher Education. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 4(12), 25-34.

After a windy couple of days, the beach still shows the signs: Where the water level used to be, and where rip currents eroded and then brought sand out into the sea…