Today I gave my Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (SET) on neuroscience and learning for the second time. I gave it for the first time last March, after a horrendous week of computer crashes and lost files, so I expected to be more comfortable this time. That turned out to be true to a certain extent – once I got started I think I had a lot more confidence than last time, but I had other types of uncertainty this time. First of all, I obviously wasn’t as active in preparing as I was last time. I certainly re-read (or at least skimmed) the bulk of the articles I used to build the presentation in the first place and I added some new stuff, but as I walked into the classroom, I found myself worrying I may have missed some huge advancement in the last six months, etc. But it went fine.

I got my feedback, and I’m happy to say it was mostly positive! Most of the criticisms were that the presentation time was too short and people wished we could have gotten into more detail – so that was a plus. Apparently there were one or two people present that either really didn’t like the material or didn’t like me, but I’m trying to focus on the other 18 or 20

So that’s about it for now. After the SET I had to teach a 3-hour neuroanatomy lab and I’m exhausted. I always forget how different “presenting” feels from “teaching.” Much scarier and much, much more tiring. Although I have to admit, it was nice to hear some applause at the end. What do you think the chances are of getting my students to do that after lectures?