Teaching
Peer Educators
If the coin of the academic realm is learning, its two sides are research and teaching. To change metaphors, these are the two peak experiences specific to major research universities. Just as Honors at Iowa urges its students to do research, it encourages them to try teaching too. The strategy in both cases is the same: to provide paid, credited, and volunteer ways for Honors Students to venture into advanced work with faculty mentors.
The cynic says that those who can, do; while those who can’t, teach. The sage says that those who would learn best, teach. Every faculty member has ample occasions to experience how the highest levels of learning come through teaching, and Honors at Iowa makes such opportunities available to its students. Please click on the right for specifics.
To do something without reflection or articulation is to rely on cultivated skills; it is to learn mainly by feel or rote and not fully by intellect too. Muscle memory comes to mind. What we know then can become “second nature” to us; yet we can still be poor at improving it, adapting it to new people or situations, and — consequently — communicating it. For these reasons, the academy features reflective knowledge, which is continually taken anew (re-captured, re-capere, re-ceived) through critical “reception” in practice. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “All that I know, I know by reception.” The academic road to highest knowledge as full-fledged reception — as adequate reflection, that is, as articulate and self-correcting knowledge — is teaching.
Honors Students at Iowa tap three main opportunities for teaching undergraduate students. Early in their studies, Honors Students who have recently excelled in general-education courses can be paid in later semesters for tutorial or small-group assistance with students those courses. This means service as a Supplemental Instructor.
Usually in the first or second year of study, Honors Students may apply to become Honors Writing Fellows. They receive training and pay for helping faculty enrich writing instruction for undergraduates in courses at various levels scattered across many fields.
Typically for juniors and seniors, the Honors Teaching Practicum provides academic credit, usually in 3-s.h. parcels, for work as teaching assistants for lower-level courses in many fields. Semesters as an Honors Teaching Assistant or an Honors Writing Fellow count toward Honors Commendations.
Honors at Iowa also provides volunteer, paid, and credited opportunities for its students to participate in peer education through programming, advising, and mentoring. Honors Peer Advisors earn academic credit for informing Honors Students about their course and program opportunities. Members of the Honors Student Staff are paid to lead a wide range of those programs. Honors Summer Guides are paid to help orient entering Honors Students. And mentors for Presidential Scholars volunteer to help recruit and initiate new Presidential Scholars.