Concern Over Potentially Deficient Teaching Experience

[Hibush]

The OP still has one aspect of the question unanswered. With a lot of teaching experience already, how important is it to get additional teaching experience in a course in their specialty?

For those of you in teaching institutions, wouldn't it matter a lot more whether the teaching experience also resulted teaching expertise?

The distinction would be one of credentialism. Racking up one more course rather than having a skill set.

If someone has demonstrated a progressive increase in teaching skill through TAships in the general field, would you be concerned about whether they could teach a course in their specialty?

If OP can substantiate being an excellent teacher already, then additional teaching would not make them a stronger applicant.

[Rochallor]

Thanks so much for all of the replies! I appreciate all the advice and comments, and I do feel calmer about this now.

Parasaurolophus's comment about the importance of solo teaching makes a lot of sense. I didn't mention it in my previous post, for simplicity, but I actually have been the instructor of record for some of the courses I've taught, and there were a few more where I was the one who did all of the teaching despite there technically being a faculty supervisor lurking in the background. Hopefully that will help.

[polly_mer]

Thanks so much for all of the replies! I appreciate all the advice and comments, and I do feel calmer about this now.

Parasaurolophus's comment about the importance of solo teaching makes a lot of sense. I didn't mention it in my previous post, for simplicity, but I actually have been the instructor of record for some of the courses I've taught, and there were a few more where I was the one who did all of the teaching despite there technically being a faculty supervisor lurking in the background. Hopefully that will help.

What is the competition like in your fields for the jobs you want?

How does your record compare to those who have been getting jobs recently?

I was hired years ago for a teaching-only position with exactly one semester as a TA experience.  However, I was applying for jobs in fields where being a TA is considered mostly for those who can't get a research fellowship or is mandatory for the program for a term or two.  Having almost no teaching experience was not much of a negative since most people wouldn't have more teaching experience.

In contrast, when we were hiring at Super Dinky, someone who had only TA experience would not be hired.  We needed someone who had designed courses from the ground up while teaching a 4/4 and doing substantial service.  Someone fresh out of grad school with only a couple sections of intro courses as instructor of record would be immediately round filed.

When I've been on the outskirts of hiring for research academic places in STEM, teaching mattered not at all.  It was all research and I have friends and colleagues who were hired into departments without having ever taught anything in that departments catalog.  I remember in particular the physicist who ended up in a chemical engineering department who became a specialist in a new area in which specialists couldn't be hired.

Thus, you have to consider whether you are going for a teaching-mostly job where you need standalone experience with a variety of student demographics (subject likely matters less) or a research job, in which case you need much more research productivity.

[Ruralguy]

My experience more or less mimics Polly's, though I should add that some teaching intensive schools really do care about scholarship, not necessarily at the monthly product and million dollar grant level, but some want to see something new when they go to review you, or see something new when you've asked for the 5th internal grant in a row and haven't published! 

Likewise, some R1 programs care more about teaching more than others and might want to see some teaching experience. I've even seen some government labs request that people teach because they got their funding via grants that said 20% of their time would be service to the community, which included teaching at the college level, visiting museums and schools, etc..

[Caracal]

It might be worth keeping an eye out for any teaching opportunities outside of your university. Schools often find themselves needing someone to cover an extra class on short notice and might contact a colleague at a nearby school to see if they know any ABD grad students who would be interested. Experience teaching at non R1 schools can be helpful on a resume.

[Rochallor]

Thanks for the further advice!

What is the competition like in your fields for the jobs you want?

How does your record compare to those who have been getting jobs recently?

I'm in the humanities. As far as I know, the employed recent graduates of my program had mostly/only TA experience, so I don't measure up too badly. Those who work in X did mostly TA for X during grad school, but I'll try not to abandon hope because of that!

[Mobius]

I would look more into the CVs of recent placements from your program. When I was applying to grad school, I look at CVs of the recent placements, and I progressed in the program, I kept tabs on those who stayed in academic.

Unfortunately, you are going to be looking at a really difficult job market and TAing yet another class will not help at this point.

[mleok]

For research universities, I think it's more important that you've TA'ed, as opposed to having TA'ed in a specific subject. For teaching focused universities, you would probably need to have experience as an instructor of record. Put another way, I don't think that you not having TA'ed in specific subject is a significant disadvantage.