PDF filePart 4: Teaching Assistant Training and Orientation
Although most universities offer generic training sessions for teaching assistants, history departments can contribute to their graduate students' expertise as lecturers and tutorial leaders by organising or hosting two-day orientation sessions, weekly courses, or workshops. Within each of these sessions, "critical incidents" or "problems" can be used to stimulate discussion among teaching assistants and between TAs and faculty. A number of published and online resource manuals are available for further reference.
Organizing Teaching Assistant Training
Who should lead the teaching assistant training program? Obviously, the faculty must play a major role, especially those members who employ teaching assistants. But faculty need not, and probably should not, shoulder the whole responsibility. Although the teaching of history has its own particular set of techniques and problems, experts in particular fields can be brought in from the teaching centre or education department on campus. In addition, experienced teaching assistants will frequently have much to offer in terms of practical experience. Any member of the department can be involved in the orientation and teaching process.
What follows are sample teaching assistant training programs that can be used as a starting point for sessions of differing lengths.
Orientation Seminars
Orientation seminars can provide teaching assistants with a brief introduction to their various tasks and responsibilities. Ranging anywhere from a few hours to a few days, these seminars will provide the department with an opportunity to introduce the graduate advisor and the graduate secretary. Administrative details, goals, and objectives can be explained to all participants in the teaching project. If organized for an entire day, sessions can be composed of discussion groups, panels, and participatory workshops.
Suggestions for topics that would be appropriate for orientation day:
- how to prepare for the first day and week of teaching
- working with diverse students
- instructional resources on campus
- facilitating discussion in a seminar
- teaching history
- the balancing act – combining research and teaching
- grading
Workshops or Micro-teaching
Workshops or micro-teaching offer teaching assistants longer sessions where they are offered pedagogical training and the opportunity to practice teaching in front of peers. Their performance is occasionally video-taped and critiqued by the group. Another approach involves having the teaching assistants be "students" in a class where a skilled seminar leader or lecturer attempts to "teach" them a skill or body of knowledge by illustrating teaching techniques. A related, but more passive approach, would have teaching assistants sit-in on regular classes with a skilled instructor. Workshops do not necessarily need to involve video-taping or active participation, but can include panel discussions or any other format deemed appropriate.
Suggested topics for workshops
- teaching philosophies
- working with students in the classroom – diversity, encouraging participation, creating safe spaces, confronting “isms” (racism, sexism etc.)
- working with individual students: office hours, personal relationships, sexual harassment
- improving student research and writing skills
- evaluating your teaching
- managing stress and balancing work
- resources on campus for TAs and students
- evaluating student work
- dealing with the problem student
- safety in the classroom
- conflict resolution
- approaches to student-centred learning
- planning effective classes
- preparing and presenting lectures
- micro-teaching workshops where TAs "teach" peers
- technology in the classroom-the effective use of audio-visual and multi-media materials
- problem-solving for international teaching assistants
- critical incidents (see below)
Critical Incidents
Critical incidents are intended to be discussed by teaching assistants in workshops to familiarise them with, and prepare them for, potential problems. They are designed to be used with a resource person who can comment on the suggestions and act as a reference regarding university policies. Teaching assistants might be asked to create their own critical incidents and discuss them with the group. Here are a few examples.
Critical Incident 1: Personal Relationships
You have become particularly friendly with one student in your tutorial group who is bright, enthusiastic, and has a good sense of humour. Following class one day, this person invites you to join him or her for coffee. How would you respond? Would you respond differently if they invited you for a beer? For a date?
Critical Incident 2: Unfair Workload
Your supervising faculty member (course director) is a very busy person who appears to be bogged down in a wide range of academic projects and responsibilities. Lately he has asked you to take on more responsibilities for the course. Your proportion of the work, particularly grading, is now well in excess of the load that was originally contracted when you began. How would you deal with the situation?
Critical Incident 3: Friends in Need
A student who has struggled all semester submits an A- paper that is intelligently argued and well written. The essay has some flaws (the ideas do not hold together, there are some awkward sentences) so you are quite sure that it has not been copied verbatim from a published source. In fact, it is a good undergraduate paper. Nonetheless, you have some doubts about the sudden burst of excellence and you talk it over with the student. "Oh sure," he cheerily acknowledges, "my girlfriend is pretty good in this stuff and she tutored me." What exactly does "tutoring" mean? He replies, "Well, we talked it over and she gave me some ideas and then she looked at the paper after I wrote it and caught a bunch of mistakes." How do you respond?