Behind the Scenes in Teaching

One of the other things I've realized during my teaching month is the amount of work that happens behind the scenes. As a student, I showed up to lecture and small groups and labs without any thought to the construction of the curriculum and the preparation for each session. I only had a vague idea that faculty were volunteering their time to teach, that they had many other clinical, research, and administrative responsibilities. But now I get to see the other side. All the instructors and small group facilitators get together before each small group and spend hours debating the problem sets. We have clinical faculty, basic science researchers, pharmacists, and medical students, and all of us argue over the clarity of the clinical cases, the best way to teach something, potential questions, and anticipated quagmires. The sessions are tiring but really educational. I've also gotten to see a little about the organizational side of things, and it's crazy. From scheduling a dozen rooms to keeping track of a dozen instructors all with different schedules to fielding questions on the message boards to dreaded committee meetings, the course administrators have their hands full. This has really helped me appreciate the tremendous amount of work that goes into education.