Talking about Teaching at Academic Interviews
As graduate students finish up their degree requirements, those who are planning on an academic career begin to gather materials and prepare in a variety of ways for their entrance on to the academic job market. Job candidates must write CVs and cover letters, solicit references, and prepare samples of their research and writing. Graduate students who are invited for on-campus interviews generally prepare a “job talk” in which they discuss their research. They may receive some departmental help in this process and have the chance to practice at a mock job talk in front of faculty members and graduate student colleagues.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, while graduate students may have many opportunities to discuss their research—at conferences, with their advisors, or with fellow graduate students—they rarely spend time talking about teaching, and they may be unprepared to answer teaching-related question in academic interviews.^[1] Mock job talks focus on research, not teaching, and in front of the real audience, while you may be well prepared for questions about your research methods or your findings, you may not be ready to answer a question about how your research has influenced your teaching or how you would teach a given standard course in the field.

All of us at Rutgers are part of a large research university. Our views of teaching and research, and those of the faculty with whom we work, are shaped by this institutional context. Our faculty prepare us to be like them—professors at major research universities. The reality, however, is that only 6.7% of the 4,000 institutions of higher education in the United States share the Rutgers comprehensive mission and dedication to research, teaching, and service. Most of us who earn jobs in academe will teach at smaller institutions that emphasize undergraduate teaching. Even large research universities will be concerned with your teaching abilities and may ask direct questions about teaching during an interview.

Those who have prepared a teaching philosophy statement or gathered materials for a teaching portfolio as part of the application process will have already begun thinking about some of the relevant issues. (Click here for information on developing a teaching portfolio.) Whether or not you’ve formally written out a teaching philosophy, before going on academic job interviews you should take some time to think about and prepare to talk about your general approach to teaching, including what you want students to get out of your courses, your teaching methods, and your approach to assessment of student learning.

You should also be ready to answer questions about how you would teach specific courses (and you might want to prepare sample syllabi and bring them to the interview), what you would teach if you could teach any course you wanted, how you use technology in your teaching, how you approach major debates in your field in your courses, and about your best and worst teaching experiences. Expect to talk about both the specifics of particular courses—key concepts, texts, and learning activities—and broader issues of teaching in your field and how you get your students to look at the world from a disciplinary perspective.

Before an interview, prepare to answer questions about teaching in that specific department at that particular university. In addition to looking up the research interests and publications of the faculty members in the interviewing department, study the courses regularly taught in the department as well at the university’s general curriculum. Use the website to learn about both the college’s mission and what types of students you’d be likely to teach at that institution. Be ready to talk about what you could contribute to the department as a teacher.

You can burnish your teaching credentials and give yourself material to talk about on the job market by participating in TAP teaching workshops and certificate programs. For more information, see the TAP calendar of events or visit our website