So-what are you going to paint for me, today?

3. Almost every graduate program of study includes a focus on self-discovery and personal growth.

As you present various pedagogies to your students, allow them to grapple with their significances in their own lives, of what they are learning. During this process, psychology students will question their mental stabilities and wrestle with personal demons. Political science majors will be challenged to establish what they fundamentally believe about issues like freedom and responsibility, while examining these beliefs in light of other political ideologies. Every discipline will personally impact your students.

4. Graduate students enjoy asking and answering their own questions.

Allowing them to take a section of material and then develop a list of questions that tackles the implications of what they are reading is an excellent method of advancing critical thinking skills. When a student is entering a graduate program of study, the time for spoon-feeding is over. Your role, as a graduate professor, is really more one of mentoring, facilitating, and challenging.

5. Graduate level students have committed themselves to a process of becoming life-long learners.

They enjoy the challenges of blazing new frontiers in their respective fields of study. They love focusing on what appears to be academic minutia and then breaking it open to find a whole new area of undiscovered study. Because they enjoy pursuing the theoretical, it is important to balance classroom expectations by encouraging a practical application of what is being learned.

6. Teaching graduate students requires more than just a semester of lesson plans.

You need to be prepared to throw out the daily planner and fly by the seat of your pants if a carpe diem kind of moment occurs in the classroom. Remember that your broader goal isn't just imparting knowledge, but teaching life.

Go into your graduate level classroom with great expectation and enthusiasm. You will be challenged even as you challenge. You will teach even while you learn. At times your students will humble you, only to turn around and bestow honor on you when you least expect it. If you are successful, you will have provided your students with the skills to both solve problems and create new puzzles to be solved. Oh, one last thought; don't forget your own notebook. You'll need it for writing down all the amazing things that your students will be teaching you.

Learn more about this author, Dr. Deborah Bauers.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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