CETL implements teaching assistant classes

The Faculty Senate recently approved a new course from the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL), CETL 8000, that will help train graduate teaching assistants (TAs). The course will be offered for the first time in the fall and comes after the introduction of training classes for undergraduate TAs that started fall 2005.

“What we have wanted to do is revamp the way both graduate and undergraduate TAs are trained. [We want to] not just train them in their content, but also in how to be better teachers,” said Steven Girardot, coordinator of teaching assistant and graduate student programs for CETL.

Both training programs are the result of a teaching assistant advisory committee organized to research the different department’s TA practices on campus.

“One of the recommendations from this committee was to establish a one-hour course, CETL 2000, as a way to train undergraduates. It is not a required course, but departments can take advantage of it as part of their TA training,” Girardot said.

This past fall CETL implemented the first two sessions of CETL 2000, one targeted at Mathematics TAs and one designed for Computer Science TAs. A total of 70 undergraduate TAs were involved in the fall training classes. There are plans to offer a multidisciplinary course for departments that do not have enough people for a whole section.

“What just got approved was CETL 8000 the graduate version of that course. It will offer workshops on motivation, classroom management, active teaching and diversity training,” Girardot said.

“We are recognizing the importance that TAs have on undergraduates here and CETL is working with departments to improve TA training,” Girardot said.

Conversations first started about the undergraduate training class during the fall of 2004. The committee began looking into a graduate version of the class during the summer and fall of 2005.

Girardot said the program is really a way that departments can document they’ve trained their TAs in both content and teaching and learning strategies.

“The course is designed to be very flexible to fit in with the department’s structure. Neither CETL 2000 nor CETL 8000 are required courses. They are optional programs that the departments can take advantage of,” Girardot said.

Girardot said there are not direct costs to the course as they only require existing labor resources.