Visiting Teacher (adopted October 1994)
A Visiting Teacher is a graduate student who arranges with a faculty member to teach that professor's undergraduate course for one week, covering a topic or organizing a project with which the student is familiar. The professor attends the class for that week and offers constructive feedback, including a brief written evaluation if the student requests one. The professor also asks the class to do an evaluation of the Visiting Teacher.
Who is this for? For graduate students with little or no teaching experience, the Visiting Teacher option allows them to get their feet wet, and to begin to investigate the world of teaching. Successful experience as a Visiting Teacher could produce student and faculty evaluations to be submitted in support of a subsequent application for a Teaching Initiative or Teaching Assistantship. While there would of course be no guarantee that the Visiting Teacher stint would lead to the other opportunities, it is a logical first step.
What does the Visiting Teacher do? The Visiting Teacher works with the professor to define the topic, select the readings and organize the assignments for one week of the course. The graduate student negotiates his/her specific role with the professor. The Visiting Teacher might conduct one week of lectures/discussions (e.g., a week on liberalism in a History of Political Thought course; a week on Indonesia in a Comparative Politics course; a week on the Gulf War in an International Relations course). Or the Visiting Teacher might initiate and supervise a project in the course (e.g., a personal narrative or oral history project in Feminist Theory, or a field trip for a Public Administration course). The point is to allow for flexibility in the kind of classroom experience the Visiting Teacher creates for herself/himself.
What is the professor's role? The Visiting Teacher is NOT an opportunity for a faculty member to leave town for a week. The professor agrees to assist the graduate student in preparing for her/his teaching, to attend the classes (and not to take them over), and to offer constructive feedback.
How is it arranged? Interested graduate students can contact a faculty member with a proposal for a Visiting Teacher arrangement. Students are expected to pick a subject in which they already have considerable knowledge. The graduate student and the faculty member should know each other well enough to predict successful performance from both parties. The arrangement would be formalized by a contract between the professor and the graduate student, specifying the topic and the approximate dates. No more than one Visiting Teacher per undergraduate course is allowed. Graduate students are allowed one Visiting Teacher stint per semester.
How is it evaluated? The Visiting Teacher constructs an evaluation form for the undergraduates to use. The form should stress the questions that the Visiting Teacher is most concerned about, including an open‑ended option to elicit maximum student response. The evaluation forms will go directly to the Visiting Teacher and be for her/his use.
The Visiting Teacher may ask the professor for a written evaluation if desired.
What about the undergraduates? Both the faculty member and the graduate student are obliged to make sure that the Visiting Teacher arrangement enriches the students' classroom experience. Done well, it could offer the students some variety, and bring a different energy to the class.