scholarly journals A Graduate Course on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Influences on Conceptions of Teaching and Learning

Author(s):  
Andrew B Leger ◽  
Sue Fostaty Young

This paper reports on the effects of a graduate course on teaching and learning on graduate teaching assistants’ conceptions of teaching and on the teaching philosophy statements that arose from those conceptions. Effects are interpreted from three perspectives: 1) course facilitators' reports of their perceptions of course participants’ conceptual change; 2) an independent assessors' ratings of the evidence of change through blind review of course participants’ initial philosophy statements and final statements; and 3) participants' own perceptions of change and identification of the course components and learning activities that were most significant in their conceptual development. Findings suggest that graduate teaching assistants’ perceptions of conceptual change differ significantly from those of both the course facilitators and the independent assessor. Cet article présente un rapport concernant les effets d’un cours supérieur portant sur l’enseignement et l’apprentissage sur les conceptions relatives à l’enseignement d’assistants d’enseignement diplômés et sur les exposés sur la philosophie d’enseignement qui ont découlé de ces conceptions. Les effets sont interprétés à partir de trois perspectives : 1) les rapports des facilitateurs du cours concernant leurs perceptions du changement conceptuel survenu parmi les participants; 2) l’évaluation d’un assesseur indépendant concernant l’évidence du changement par le biais d’un examen aveugle des exposés initiaux sur la philosophie d’enseignement des participants ainsi que de leurs exposés finaux; et 3) les perceptions personnelles des participants concernant le changement et l’identification des composantes du cours et des activités d’apprentissage qui ont été les plus significatives pour leur développement conceptuel. Les résultats suggèrent que les perceptions des assistants d’enseignement diplômés concernant le changement conceptuel diffèrent grandement de celles des facilitateurs du cours et de celles de l’assesseur indépendant.

Politics ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hayton

Seminars form a key part of undergraduate politics teaching in Britain, and Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are often at the forefront of this delivery. This article explores the attitudes and understandings of GTAs towards teaching and learning in the Department of Politics at Sheffield. Interviews were conducted with 16 GTAs, covering not only their approach to teaching and learning, but how this manifested itself, for example in the way they organise their seminars. Related issues such as the training and development of GTAs were also discussed. Based on these findings, some initial recommendations for training and mentoring of GTAs are offered in the conclusion.


1969 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Dik Harris ◽  
Laura April McEwen

This article describes the design and implementation of a workshop on teaching and learning for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in a Faculty of Science at a major Canadian research-intensive university. The approach borrows heavily from an existing successful workshop for faculty but is tailored specifically to the needs of GTAs in science in an environment where departmental resources are largely absent. Thus, the workshop is unusual in that it finds a midpoint between centrally administered, discipline-neutral programs and those that are discipline specific. Equally, it is unusual because it was conceived, implemented, and continues to evolve through the active involvement of teaching fellows, themselves GTAs, who receive particular preparation for their role. The approach is discussed in relation to other approaches found in the literature.  


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 294-319
Author(s):  
NICOLA JUSTICE ◽  
ANDREW ZIEFFLER ◽  
JOAN GARFIELD

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for the instruction of many statistics courses offered at the university level, yet little is known about these students’ preparation for teaching, their beliefs about how introductory statistics should be taught, or the pedagogical practices of the courses they teach. An online survey to examine these characteristics was developed and administered as part of an NSF-funded project. The results, based on responses from 213 GTAs representing 38 Ph.D.–granting statistics departments in the United States, suggest that many GTAs have not experienced the types of professional development related to teaching supported in the literature. Evidence was also found to suggest that, in general, GTAs teach in ways that are not aligned with their own beliefs. Furthermore, their teaching practices are not aligned with professionally-endorsed recommendations for teaching and learning statistics. First published May 2017 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives


Author(s):  
Denice Ward Hood ◽  
Wen-Hao David Huang

As the number of online courses offered continues to increase, teaching online will become a standard expectation and responsibility for graduate teaching assistants (TAs). For TAs who will seek faculty positions, experience and self-efficacy teaching online are critical to their future career. The current and future university landscape and the higher education world these TAs will embody will require qualified individuals to be well trained in online course development and delivery. Of equal importance is the quality of teaching TAs provide for the large number of online undergraduate courses for which they have sole responsibility or provide instructional support. Colleges and universities need to develop professional development for TAs that reflects best practices in online teaching and learning and engages TAs in the instructional design as well as delivery process. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the literature on teaching assistant professional development and the implications for TAs teaching online.


2014 ◽  
pp. 212-228
Author(s):  
Denice Ward Hood ◽  
Wen-Hao David Huang

As the number of online courses offered continues to increase, teaching online will become a standard expectation and responsibility for graduate teaching assistants (TAs). For TAs who will seek faculty positions, experience and self-efficacy teaching online are critical to their future career. The current and future university landscape and the higher education world these TAs will embody will require qualified individuals to be well trained in online course development and delivery. Of equal importance is the quality of teaching TAs provide for the large number of online undergraduate courses for which they have sole responsibility or provide instructional support. Colleges and universities need to develop professional development for TAs that reflects best practices in online teaching and learning and engages TAs in the instructional design as well as delivery process. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the literature on teaching assistant professional development and the implications for TAs teaching online.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey Robert Galin ◽  
Haley Swartz ◽  
Marianna Gleyzer ◽  
Rachel Copley ◽  
Nicholas Mennona Marino

While much has been written about visual literacy and multimodal teaching, almost nothing has been published on preparing instructors and graduate teaching assistants to provide students with the mechanics of visual design, rhetoric, and cultural criticism to help them build complex, multimodal projects that go beyond visual inclusion and critique. This chapter focuses on a graduate course on visual literacy, rhetoric, and design that was taught by one of the authors and taken by the other four. Grounded in previous claims for visual literacy in the field, the authors open by introducing how and why students can be helped to develop visual arguments. It then introduces the graduate course, and 10 strategies for successful multimodal, project-based teaching, which are exemplified by graduate and undergraduate project examples. The chapter concludes with example assignments from two of the graduate authors and a call for a dedicated cross-disciplinary graduate course for multimodal pedagogy.


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