Introduction

Welcome to the University of Central Florida!

UCF is a large public university with one of the highest student enrollments in the country. As such, you may notice certain features to teaching at UCF that are unique. This includes benefits such as a large support system of offices that can assist you in many different ways, and a panoply of interdepartmental initiatives and cooperation. You may also encounter challenges such as large class sizes or a student body diverse not only in cultural, ethnic, and racial make-up, but also in physical age and preparedness for a college career.

We believe in promoting a culture of ongoing preparation, development, and growth as educators. Indeed, the modern foundations of a professor’s existence—research, teaching, service—argue for continual professional development in multiple forms. One prominent direction many instructors now investigate combines two traditionally separate pursuits: the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, which offers the opportunity to publish academically rigorous articles on your teaching practices and experiments. This workbook will also help you pursue your development as a teacher in many varied directions.

The teaching paradigm has undergone significant self-evaluation in recent decades, and educators have become aware of multiple modes of classroom interaction. One class may be teacher-centered, for instance, while others are more rightly considered subject-centered. Then there are student-centered classes and learning-centered ones. We prefer to promote the latter. It seems most likely that our goals of student learning will be met when the focus remains fixated on learning (rather than the subject matter, the teacher him/herself, or even the students). But the teacher should not retreat entirely to the point of invisibility. Good teachers gaze inward and recognize the spiritual calling of teaching, drawing upon that to weave connections between themselves, their students, and the subject matter.

An instructor at UCF wears many hats and fulfills many roles. We are educators, to be sure, responsible for facilitating our students’ increased comprehension of the subject matter, critical thinking, personal development, and preparation for future careers. But we have administrative roles to play as well, and classroom management skills are not often included in our disciplinary training. Do avail yourself of the resources on campus—many listed at the end of this workbook—as well as the Faculty Center for assistance.  The activity of teaching is a continual journey, one fraught with both thrilling opportunity and occasional peril, but no one should feel they are the first to take the journey, or that they must do it alone.