[PhDGirl]

At the University level (in the US), you don't get much formal training before you teach - in fact, it is secondary to research. The first course I taught, I had an old syllabus (which I didn't like, so I changed it) and just winged it. There are seminars and stuff on campus, but tenure decisions are mostly based on research and not teaching, so it's hard to justify spending the time on teaching pre-tenure if you're getting reasonably good teaching reviews. I never served as a TA before teaching either - maybe if I had, that would have been better because I would have had a little bit of practice with the guidance of a professor, but oh well!