ABSTRACT
We know a senior professor whose sole preparation for college teaching came during his third year in graduate school when he received a onesentence letter assigning him to teach introductory psychology the following term. Quite a few important items were left out of this letter. It said nothing about (a) what topics to cover, (b) how to create a syllabus, (c) how to select a textbook, (d) how to prepare lectures and class activities, (e) how to evaluate students’ performance, or (f) how to handle student-related problems such as grading complaints, classroom disruptiveness, make-up exam requests, and referrals to the counseling center. He had to learn these things-and everything else that psychology teachers should know about teaching-through trial and error in the classroom. It is no wonder that facing that first class was one of the most frightening experiences of his life (Bernstein, 1983).
