Good Practices in Graduate Education-- Teaching

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Guidelines for Good Practice in Graduate Education: Part 2 of 3

Good Practices homepage
Professionalism and Ethics-- Student's responsibilities, Faculty member's responsibilities
Teaching-- Student's role, Faculty member's role
Mentoring-- Student's role, Faculty member's role

Teaching-- Student's role, Faculty member's role

No matter what career a graduate student enters after degree completion, experience in teaching will be useful; presentations, evaluation and assessment, leading discussions, and the like, are activities that take place not only in the academy, but in a wide variety of business, industrial, and government settings. Teaching includes interactions with students about instructional issues, such as holding office hours, reviewing tests or paper scores/evaluations with students, answering questions in special teaching centers in the discipline, tutoring, conducting labs, leading discussions, assisting students to solve problem sets, commenting on studio work, or lecturing. Graduate students and faculty should work together to enhance student learning and achieve professional development for the graduate teaching assistant.

In this context, the graduate student’s role is to:

• work cooperatively with supervising faculty and other teaching assistants to accomplish the tasks set out by the TA assignment

• give adequate attention to the teaching role by conscientious efforts in planning, preparation, and implementation of TA assignments

• achieve an appropriate balance between teaching responsibilities and other essential activities

• take advantage of whatever orientation and training opportunities are offered as professional development; use the library and other services of the Center for Instructional Development and Research for more information on teaching and learning

• proactively seek varied teaching opportunities

• engage in reflective analysis of teaching activities

In this context, the faculty member’s role is to:

• provide adequate training for teaching assistants appropriate for the responsibilities they will assume; in some cases training will be provided by departmental training programs

• provide appropriate communication with and mentorship for teaching assistants to enhance their professional development and to ensure the quality of student learning

• develop a clear understanding with graduate students about their specific TA responsibilities, including division of authority and labor, expectations for performance, and the like

• observe the student’s teaching in order to provide feedback on, and assistance for, current activities and recommendations for the student’s future employment

• identify appropriate departmental and campus resources to assist graduate students in their professional development as teaching scholars

• respect the boundary of part-time appointments when assigning duties

• foster opportunities for students to attain teaching competence

Professionalism and Ethics-- Student's responsibilities, Faculty member's responsibilities

Mentoring-- Student's role, Faculty member's role

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