Preparing academics to teach: example of a structured method of preparing doctoral students in business programs to teach

Abstract

The qualifications of academics to teach students are often left unquestioned. Current accreditation standards, for an academic to teach, are typically determined by courses taken, certifications or degrees obtained, and/or industry experience. Doctoral programs are inconsistent in their approaches to formal instruction in pedagogy and their degree of emphasis on teaching skills assessment beyond the typical student teaching evaluations. Furthermore, in many instances, doctoral students begin teaching while they are still in their doctoral program without any formal training. We aim to address this institutionalized deficiency by providing a concise and actionable framework for teaching doctoral students how to teach that can serve as a template for other business school doctoral programs seeking to implement a doctoral teaching seminar. We provide an example of a doctoral teaching seminar in a College of Business developed to train doctoral students in five teaching competencies intended to ensure they are able to provide quality instruction to university students. In doing so, we explain the assignments and then provide evidence of the assignments’ effectiveness as well as the teaching seminar’s overall effectiveness.