TA training

[jeffster]

So when I started TAing last year, I was surprised at the level of training we got.  Or to be more specific, the complete lack of training.

 

Both semesters I taught smaller sections of huge undergrad econ intro lectures, where I was responsible for meeting with smaller groups twice a week, being their point of contact for all questions, and grading their work.  They literally just tossed my colleagues and I into it with narry a word.  I didn't really have a problem, since I've done some teaching and am naturally good at presenting in front of others, but many in my cohort had no experience and/or are the quiet, introverted types. 

 

But still, this type of "figure it out as you go" thing doesn't seem particularly fair to the undergrads.  Is this standard practice?  What kind of prep do people get in other departments?

[Lisa44201]

At the institution where I received my Master's degree, there was an entire orientation specific to TAs; at my PhD institution, we're advised to touch base with our mentors several weeks before the start of the semester to go over the textbook, expectations, & etc.

[jmu]

We have a required 3 day orientation and an optional certification. I would not be comfortable going in blind.

[danieleWrites]

It's the Mastery v. Pedagogy approach. Up until recently, in most fields, it was assumed that a mastery of a field made one competent to teach in the field. Actually, there's still a lot of people who believe that. There's just no pedagogy. TAing in English for my masters was as enlightening as it was horrific. We had one day of orientation, half of which was filling out forms and browsing through the table of contents on the books we'd be using that semester (and we were only using them because they'd been ordered for those sections, later semesters book choice was up to the TA). After that, we took a 1 credit hour course called Topics in Teaching. We met for an hour each week to pretty much complain about how people spent too much time texting. It was totally run in the mastery paradigm.

 

It wasn't until last spring, as an adjunct, that I got any help on creating an assignment sheet so the student could understand the assignment clearly and deliver it. Mastery paradigms just assume that this kind of things is common sense. It's not.

 

My doctoral program promises to be helpful. In addition to three intensive TA orientation days by both the graduate school and the English department (my department), I have to take a 3 credit hour pedagogy course that will include writing essays, taking exams, and readings from the big guys in composition pedagogy. We'll also be assembling a teaching portfolio that includes a teaching philosophy. So I'm beyond excited about this.

 

For TAs with little or no support, I recommend hitting the library for pedagogy books. Find some pedagogy texts in your field, in a field that logically supports yours, and in general. There's tons upon tons of composition pedagogy out there. English comp is huge with the pedagogy these days because universities are churning out students without any aptitude in writing. You can also look through past line schedules and find professors (not TAs) that taught what you're teaching and ask them for copies of syllabi, assignments, or general advice. It might seem weird for, say, a chemistry TA to read English comp pedagogy, but assignment design and assessment in composition is en vogue so there's a lot of info on it. There's also a Writing Across the Curriculum program in practically every university. The WAC people may not have time to help out, but it doesn't hurt to ask them if they have any sample assignments or assessments that you can have. That would be a generic "you", not at any specific person on the thread.

[TakeruK]

The "throw grad students into TAing without any real training" is unfortunately a common approach. I think being trained to do our job is important and we should not be expected to "train ourselves" (especially not without being compensated for the time). At the schools I've been to, it is through students voicing their concerns to the department/school that TA orientation and teaching development workshops were built. I would also argue that there is a huge difference between TA orientation (which is more logistics, like how TAing works, where to get help, what is expected of you, and the rules and policies governing TAing) and actual teaching workshops (where you practice and develop teaching skills). Sometimes there are also optional/extra training courses through the school's Center for Teaching & Learning. Unfortunately, most schools view this as "enrichment" training where they will allow students to do this on their own time, but they don't consider it employment training so that we are not compensated or credited for this time at all. So, it is sometimes quite difficult to meet all the other commitments and also find time to take one of these workshops!

 

I hope that more schools, especially the science research heavy programs, would value teaching more and send their grad students to these training workshops!

[rising_star]

Hahaha, we get basically no training at my PhD program. There's a university-wide mandatory TA orientation that's like 4 hours of stuff. There's also a required 1 credit course in my department that was basically useless. What I found useful though was going through the teaching center on campus. Ours offers graduate level seminars aimed at helping grad students understand pedagogical theory and how to teach. I mean, it makes sense to seek their expertise since they have PhDs in how to teach college students and experience helping professors and grad students from across campus and in various disciplines. So, yea, I learned more in the one semester course I took from them than I learned in the course from my department, the big orientation, and from convos with other students.

 

The three biggest takeaways, if I had to distill them, would be these:

1) Chunking. Students attention span is about 8 minutes so don't lecture for any longer than that.

2) Don't try to write a whole test in a few days. The best thing to do is write a few possible questions after each class.

3) Reduce content. Write a syllabus with everything you want to cover, then reduce it by 1/4-1/3. We all try to cover too much content.

 

But the broader conversation about how grad students learn how to teach is one worth having. Mastery of the content really isn't enough to make one a good teacher. And whether as a grad student or as faculty we'll be teaching things outside of our content areas so even content mastery may not be there. That's when it really helps/matters to have pedagogical skills and training. If you can find it somewhere around you, you should seek it out.

[jeffster]

I guess it might be especially challenging in my field, since the majority of people in it likely plan on going into the public or private sector, with very few expecting academia to be their primary career.  Just how much effort do you put into learning to teach when you don't want to be a teacher?  Couple that with little support from the department for their TAs, and, well, doesn't make for a great learning environment.

 

This might also explain why no one likes taking undergraduate economics courses.

[danieleWrites]

I've read Das Kapital Vol. 1. Every word. All the way through. It took ages 'cuz Just OMG. I've read Adam Smith, some Ricardo, Wallerstein, a bit of Keynes, and I read a lot of stuff economists put out pretty regularly in regular news outlets, periodicals, and sociology journals. I'm a Marxian when it comes to theory. I'm also involved in a very long argument about whether or not Reagan was a conservative or a neoliberal (I say neoliberal, but my conservative family are bleeping rings around themselves). The take away I get from reading these people is that a large part of writing in economics is explaining one's viewpoint and why one's viewpoint is more valid than someone else's opposing viewpoints. There's a lot of teaching economic theory in tiny nuggets involved in all of these readings. Unlike hard sciences, there's no definitive proof that one system will work better than another system, just strongly suggestive evidence and a lot of religious-type fervor for one's pet theory.

 

So, I think that there is some personal value in a non-academic learning some pedagogy, beyond learning the material by teaching it, how much value there is in pedagogy is too subjective to properly measure. It's like trying to measure the liberal education component in, say, an engineer's bachelor's degree. There is value, but how can anyone quantify it.

 

I suppose that this kind of thing is individual for everyone, even people who are planning on a job teaching.

[juilletmercredi]

Most departments are like that, I think.

 

My department has a "TA orientation" at the beginning of each semester.  It's really not a training in teaching so much as it is an orientation for where to get certain resources in the department - like copying or the codes to the room where the Scantron machine is.  But as far as actual teaching techniques, we were also thrown in there and expected to learn as we went along.

 

That didn't bother me because that's how I prefer to learn anyway.  There is a teaching practicum that you can take, but it's 1) optional and 2) an actual 2-credit course, so it takes a whole semester and you don't have to take it before you start.  I opted not to take it.

[St Andrews Lynx]

I've just completed the TA orientation for my university (1 day and an extra half-day for international students). New TAs in my Department don't have it too bad - we're in charge of the intro labs and aren't expected to make up new tests, quizzes or guidelines. The orientation itself was useful...but I can't help feel that my BEST orientation will be to get in the labs and run them... 

[somethinbruin]

I guess I'm an outlier because I've always received really strong GTA training. At my master's institution, you don't teach your first semester. Instead, you take a composition pedagogy class for three hours a week, attend bimonthly practicum meetings, and observe a seasoned instructor. My PhD program pays new GTAs to come in early for more than two weeks of full time training. While you're there you cover pedagogy and practical classroom topics, as well as build your syllabus unit-by-unit. 

 

I will say, teacher training was a big deal for me though as I looked at potential schools. I turned down a funded MA offer because it offered two days of training and I had never taught comp before. I really liked that I had a whole semester in my MA program to get used to being in the classroom. It made it easier to just have the two weeks of training in my PhD program because I already had a solid basis in pedagogy.

 

I think schools that ignore pedagogy instruction do a disservice to both the undergraduates (who receive the teaching) and the instructor (who may need the teaching skills to advance their academic careers). It's something prospective students should definitely take into account.

[Arcadian]

lol @ "TA training"

 

I don't remember anything from my TA training because it was fucking pointless. Everything that was said was either trivially obvious or could have been summarized in a page of text.

[HYHY02]

I'm about to TA for the first time (lab demonstrater), and I've yet to recieve any sort of training. There was a general TA orientation, but it was more geared towards etiquette, social dynamics and how to deal with problems such as confrontations, things like that. Although valuable, I found it not to be that important. Want I really want is some training in regards to the specific labs I'll be teaching/conducting, and for this, I haven't heard one word. I think there will be some sort of weekly training for TAs, a week before the actual lab, but I have nothing concrete, which is making me anxious. I mean I haven't touched a microscope in years, I'd probably fail that lab section if I had to do it today...

[jmu]

Our training was about a day of policy and two days of pedagogy. Not all trainings are bad.

[Sigaba]

In the event that one feels poorly served by the training one receives from one's department, give thought to doing your outside field in your institution's school of education.