Lecturing as a doctoral student

 

You may be aware that often, full-time PhD students are encouraged to teach on various programmes, predominantly to undergraduate students. This is an opportunity to both share aspects of their research and their point of view with others, as well as an opportunity to make some additional income on the side.  As a part-time EdD student, the same teaching opportunities don't appear to be as available. But as someone who is keen to build my academic experience as well as have an opportunity to talk about my research and share my thoughts, I wanted to have the option to deliver some sort of teaching. 

I am lucky in that I have worked in Higher Education for a number of years, allowing me to build connections with numerous academics. Through these connections, I have openly talked about my interest in perhaps delivering guest lectures from an ethnographic perspective where I am able to bring theoretical concepts to life by using my own commercial work experiences as case studies. I am lucky to have had a strong career in sales, marketing and business development in an international context and this has allowed me to offer guest lectures in subject areas such as the cultural aspects of international business, business etiquette in East Asia, cross-cultural team management and motivation and I have also talked about organisational structures and how I came to identify the sort of organisational structure that stimulates me. 

Since 2013, when I moved back to the UK after more than ten years in Beijing, China I began guest lecturing at a number of different universities and I have always really enjoyed the entire process of designing lectures through to delivering them. 

Now that I am two years into my part-time EdD I am keen to involve myself in lectures that are more in line with my research focus of the marketisation of UK higher education, neoliberalism, identities in the workplace - my thesis looks at academic identities in higher education, and I am keen to establish myself as an up and coming visual methodologies advocate and ambassador. And who knows, one day maybe even an expert!

If you are currently studying masters or doctoral degree, full time or part-time and you are keen in trying out some teaching I would say don't overthink it and simply reach out to some academics that you have a connection with - your supervisor, your department, your course leader etc and simply ask whether there might be an opportunity for you to deliver some sort of guest lecture on a topic either relevant to your studies or perhaps related to any commercial experience that you have. I have found a good way in is in presenting commercial relevance that students may be interested in learning more about.  

Once you have an opportunity to hand its simply a case of coming up with a concept and a set of slides. I am quite pragmatic and I thrive on learning methods for doing a particular task or from learning a particular way to consider an idea or a concept and so I try where possible to deliver lectures that help students consider a new approach to a situation.

Even if you are not considering a career in academia, the skills required in planning and delivering a lecture are extremely attractive on a CV and an ability to speak publicly is often highly sought after in most professions. 

Do leave me a comment if you have ideas on how I can perhaps increase my guest lecturing experiences and if you want to discuss a particular opportunity then please do leave me a direct message as I would love to expand my lecturing reach.