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Post Doctoral Program in Teaching
Recruiting faculty with the credentials and experience to teach in the biomedical sciences has proven very difficult in recent years. Several departments have conducted searches which were unsuccessful in identifying faculty with the classroom experience, expertise, and technology-based instructional skills necessary to teach rigorous courses to a highly competitive and diverse student body. This problem is being experienced throughout the nation, particularly at the undergraduate and professional school levels and in graduate programs with significant service or survey teaching loads. Prospective faculty with highly specialized research training have frequently spent little time in the classroom refining their teaching skills (Science:277,1031-1032 1997).
To address the need for “trained teachers”, the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology at Texas A&M University, has initiated the “Teaching in the Biomedical Sciences – A Postdoctoral Training Program. Searches are conducted for individuals with doctoral degrees in the biomedical or life sciences (physiology, biology, anatomy, bioengineering, biochemistry…) who are interested in focusing their scholarship on teaching. The program is targeted to attract recent graduates and experienced researchers ready for a change in career direction. Two applicants are selected each year into a two-year program. Each participant is assigned a teaching mentor and given the opportunity to gain experience teaching at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. Participants learn to use the classroom as their research laboratory while mastering the use of state-of-the-art teaching equipment in our recently remodeled classrooms and laboratories. They are required to complete a scholarly project with results published in a biomedical education journal and presented at a national teaching forum. Participants are also required to submit at least one proposal to a funding agency, which provides support for educational research. They are expected to work with the Center for Teaching Excellence, Center for Distance Learning Research, College Master Teacher Panels and faculty who have been recognized for their teaching excellence. Each participant receives both student and peer evaluations to assist them in improving their classroom performance and developing their teaching portfolio. A portion of the participants’ formal training includes instruction in information retrieval, distance education, computer-based instruction, and use of the world-wide web in the classroom.