Work in Progress – Transforming College Teaching Courses into More Authentic Experiences

Abstract

Authentic achievement requires learners to engage in disciplined inquiry to produce knowledge that has value in their lives beyond simply proving their competence. While college teaching courses provide an important role in preparing future faculty in STEM disciplines, a more authentic experience was the goal of one already successful course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Similar to other courses across the nation, students write a teaching philosophy, design a syllabus and learning plans, and complete a microteaching experience. While the micro-teaching experience is continually ranked as the most valuable, the instructors are experimenting with making the micro-teaching more authentic. In so doing, they are piloting a "micro-course" in which students identify real students, rather than their peers, to teach. This "workin-progress" describes the authentic microcourse, the experience of students in the pilot of this innovation, results from this "teaching as research" experiment, and the current situation of this evolving learning experience for both students and teachers.