My worst teaching moment – and what it taught me

Almost too many to choose just one...but I remember the class practical in which students were sucking up something nasty in pasteur pipettes with a rubber teat on the end (it was a long time ago, OK?). I watched one seated student prepare to pull off the teat, while the pipette was pointed at his thigh. I TRIED to speak, but too slowly, and he stabbed himself with the pipette, resulting in a visit to hospital, various forms being filled in, a candid discussion with my boss, etc. The class repeated next day, and I was very careful, when we got to that part to say very clearly "DO NOT POINT THE PIPETTE AT YOUR THIGH WHEN REMOVING THE TEAT" and was once again frozen with horror as a student turned it sideway, pulled off the teat, and yes - stabbed his classmate in the arm.

Some useful additional open access resources on this subject: Canada's 3M National Teaching Fellows Explore Creating Learning and Generative Responses from Colossal Failures - https://celt.uwindsor.ca/index.php/CELT/article/view/5295 Module 2 of https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/onhumanlearn/