Teaching and Learning Strategies Blog

Have you ever stopped to picture the future you really want? Maybe you daydreamed about a future where you didn’t have all the problems you face today.  Or you saw yourself overcoming an important obstacle that stands in your way. You might have seen yourself in your mind’s eye swinging a bat and making a home run. Or perhaps after having lunch with the CEO of your company, you pondered whether you could be a CEO like her some day. These are all different ways of visualizing the future, but it turns out there are critical differences between them. Positive visualization is a tool I’ve used to achieve some of my greatest successes.  But I’ve done it wrong, too – with cringe-worthy results! In this article I’ll share what I…

Have you heard of Imposter Syndrome? I’m willing to bet you have. It’s a term that's thrown around a lot these days.  I think the reason so many people use it is because most of us can relate to the concept.  To put it simply, you experience Imposter Syndrome when you have the fear that you are not as capable, knowledgeable or skilled as people think you are. The idea was first conceptualized in 1978, and the original authors referred to it as the “Impostor Phenomenon”. The authors of that original paper were two psychologists named Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, and their article is titled, The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention. Clance also created what she calls the Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale.  And…

Years ago, when I was a teaching assistant in grad school (teaching a zoology lab, of all things!), I had an experience that changed the way I thought about being an expert forever. As you might guess, a zoology lab is intended to teach students about the diverse animal life on earth.  There are lots and lots and LOTS of animals on earth!  As a second year grad student in my twenties, needless to say, I did not know everything about every animal that exists.  But I believed my job as a teacher was to be an “expert” on the topic. Back then, I thought being an expert meant knowing the answer to any question a student might bring up.  That would have meant, literally, knowing everything there is to…

I wasn’t planning to write an article about Imposter Syndrome this week, but something happened that convinced me I should put aside my scheduled topic and take this on instead.   Two different acquaintances of mine, both insanely experienced and qualified for their work, told me they suffer from Imposter Syndrome.  These folks are people I consider to be top experts in their respective fields, and they suffer from Imposter Syndrome! I mean, of course mere mortals like me have experienced it at times, but when I found out they did, too, it was a revelation. Want to know what’s worse?  Both of these people are skilled educators whose students get tremendous value from what they have to teach. What if they had let Imposter Syndrome stop them from getting their…