The Early Career Blog

Dr Steve Joy Everyone knows the rules of academic interviews: you get research questions, teaching questions, and a few admin/service-type questions. True, there may be a tricky icebreaker ("How well do you know Aberystwyth?") or a real googly at the end ("What else should we have asked you?"), but the bulk of the interview is given over to this tried-and-tested triptych. The three categories can certainly be subdivided further - e.g. past research, future projects, funding, publications, collaborations, and so on - but we know what we're dealing with overall. Frankly, it's rather comforting. Yet, despite their predictability, I often encounter a lot of anxiety about teaching questions, even from early career academics who are already hugely experienced pedagogues. So, today's post is the first of a series in which I am going to attempt to demystify some of what's going on in these teaching discussions & to offer some tips which you can put in