How to best enhance one's teaching qualifications as an early career scholar?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a PhD student asks:

When it comes to getting teaching experience as an early career scholar, does it enhance your CV to have taught PHIL101 and Critical Thinking over, say, teaching a more specialized class more than once? As I start teaching, part of me feels like it would be better to get more experience teaching the courses in my AOS, but another part of me thinks having more courses listed is better (even if the courses are very basic).

Good question. My sense is that the answer is clear here, at least as far as the job-market is concerned: experience teaching a greater variety of courses outside your AOS is far and away the better bet. Why? Simple. Assuming you have teaching experience at all, committees will already expect you to be able to teach courses in your AOS. Those are your areas of expertise! So, teaching more in your AOS probably has little upside.

On the other hand, as someone who have served on about two handfuls of search committees, my experience has been that job ads often contain random courses that the department really needs the new hire to teach, but which aren't in the hire's AOS (or even AOC). Oftentimes, this is because there's a basic course in the curriculum that the department needs to have taught consistently, but which they have no specialists at all to teach. So, if experience teaching that course is on your CV, it may be a massive advantage for you compared to applicants who have never taught it. Although this is of course a matter of luck, the point is that the broader your teaching experience is, the more likely it is that you'll have experience teaching a course that a department is looking for in a candidate.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Comments

[Former Teaching Fellow]

I would second Marcus' advice that wide teaching outside of your AOS is the best option (if you have a choice).

I would also advise people to get experience teaching large PHIL101 type courses over more specialised teaching. The reasons are 1) people will assume you can teach in your AOS anyway 2) PHIL101 courses exist everywhere, and there is frequently teaching need in it (and that need is often not included in specifics of job adverts). Being able to contribute to those courses can be a factor in a close competition between early career people with the same/similar AOS.