Teaching outside your expertise? Don't worry...

Teaching outside your area of expertise can be daunting but is a reality in academia today. Even when teaching courses about subjects you know well, there will always be some topics you are more comfortable with relative to others. Non-experts do bring strengths to the classroom: when teaching a less familiar subject, you're more likely to have realistic expectations of your students, and you'll tend to focus on concrete explanations of problems and phenomena. As with any teaching assignment, though, you will want to manage your time, plan course content, and be respected by the students - all things we have a few suggestions for here.

What's important? Planning the course

• Look for a few syllabi (online or elsewhere) for a similar course
• Talk to at least one expert in the field to learn about important themes as well as common misconceptions
• Start with a topic that you are more familiar with
• Employ active learning techniques to engage students and encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning
• Build flexibility into the syllabus

Establishing credibility

• Introduce yourself, including your background, work experience, and degrees
• Arrive on time or a little early
• Dress professionally
• Be clear about expectations and due dates
• Remind students about upcoming due dates, exams, and other events
• If something needs to be changed or rescheduled, ask for student preferences and feedback
• Prepare to explain confusing or difficult topics clearly and in more than one way
• Do all of the course reading in advance, and be familiar with it
• Learn how to field questions appropriately, and have ways of saying "I don't know the answer"

Managing your time

• Reframe your role in the classroom so you don't feel that you hold the "key" to all the knowledge
• Reuse quality material developed for the same course in the past
• Transfer relevant material from previous courses you've taught
• Familiarize yourself with course readings before the course and then before each class
• Stagger due dates and do not plan too many assessments
• Aim for quality instead of quantity

Try to avoid

• Underestimating the amount of time it takes to prepare
• Assigning too much work and too many assignments
• Over-preparing

These are just a few suggestions and techniques that may be helpful when you are teaching material that you're less familiar with. Keep in mind that, as a non-expert, you have strengths that you can use to your advantage. Furthermore, teaching outside your expertise can broaden your knowledge base, lead to new and interesting areas of research, connect you with faculty and colleagues in other departments and institutions, and enhance your C.V.  Let us know how it goes!

Source: Huston, Therese. Teaching What You Don't Know. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Print.