From our friend, Sharpie Sandbox:
Graduate school is full of opportunities and you get out what you put in. Take advantage of the boa constrictors around you! There are projects across campus that are willing to train you in exchange for your volunteer efforts (there may even be paid opportunities). For example, you can learn from the Campus Community Gardeners, Engineers Without Borders, and as always, there are plenty of opportunities to learn more about teaching and learning, both through the GATA Network (us!) and the Centre for Teaching and Learning.
What you find depends on where and how hard you look. Know of some great opportunities around here? Share them in the comments!
Melanie Santarossa is one of the 2011 winners of a GA/TA Award for Educational Practice from the University of Windsor Centre for Teaching and Learning. In the video below, she takes us through each section of her teaching dossier, explaining why and how she chose what to include and how she ties it all together.
Melanie’s dossier demonstrates all of the award criteria, a range of pedagogical strategies, a coherent approach, breadth and depth of sample resources and lessons, active engagement and self-direction. In addition, the organization and readability of Melanie’s dossier make it easy to understand her approach to teaching and learning.
All of the 2011 GATA awards will be presented at the Celebration of Teaching Excellence this fall, along with all of the faculty teaching awards and certificate for those graduating from the University Teaching Certificate Program. Two copies of Melanie’s dossier will be kept at the CTL and are available as models for future nominees.
For more information about the award process and criteria, please see: http://www.uwindsor.ca/ctl/gata-nomination-process.
The Centre for Teaching and learning will be holding a Teaching Dossier Academy from June 6-10, 2011 to help participants develop their dossiers over five days. Be sure to register!
Sharpie Sandbox captures it perfectly here. Just because you explain something to someone doesn’t mean they’ll understand it. This is partly because they hear exactly what you say, not what you mean.
Precise word choice matters when you’re explaining new concepts (like subtraction). It’s quite easy to see how someone could misinterpret “take one away” — isn’t it?
from Sharpie Sandbox:
“If you say: here are two different numbers, now take one of them away. I’ll say: easiest math ever! …And then fail three years in a row.”
GAs and TAs are often hired to perform duties for which they have little or no training. As a student, you may have written excellent papers, but writing does not automatically teach you how to create rubrics for grading the papers of other students. You have received feedback on your own work, but are you familiar with the pedagogy behind writing comments that will support student learning? You may have participated in labs, but you may not be familiar with the best practices for creating effective lesson plans for lab sessions. You have probably participated in class discussions; do you know how to prepare for leading a discussion?
As Student Assistants you will be expected to pick up the knowledge and skills you need while you are already on the job. Finding resources to help you quickly develop the necessary skills for your job can be daunting and time-consuming. Where do you begin?
People
Remember that people who perform these tasks are all around you. Find mentors with whom you feel comfortable discussing issues around teaching. Most of your professors have been in your position earlier in their careers. There are probably other GAs or TAs in your department who have had similar experiences. If you do not know who they are, ask the departmental secretary. The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has experts who welcome questions from GAs and TAs and will be happy to help you. Check out the website: http://ctl.uwindsor.ca/. The CTL holds workshops throughout the year on teaching and learning issues. Check out the GATAcademy held each year just before the Fall term begins. There, you will find sessions by faculty members or experienced GAs and TAs on various issues having to do with GA or TA skills. The GATA Network is another source for finding peer-mentors and setting up workshops within departments.
Reading
It is not always easy to fit workshops into your schedule. Make a point of attending them when you can, but there are other resources within reach. The Leddy Library has a selection of books and Journals on teaching in Higher Education, as well as some specifically geared towards GAs and TAs. The CTL also has a small resource library, and members of the CTL or the GATA Network can recommend a selection of short readings geared to your needs. The CTL is in Lambton Tower 2107. ctl@uwindsor.ca or gata@uwindsor.ca.
On-line
The CTL’s website can act as a gateway for anyone who wants to read more about teaching and learning. The “Links and Resources” page has links to articles and sites with helpful suggestions, as well as and information about the research on teaching and learning. The “GATA” page (under “University Teaching”) has information about workshops and events for GAs and TAs, as well as, various services offered by the CTL, GA/TA awards, courses, and certificate programs.
The GATA Network has a Blog with regular postings about issues faced by Student Assistants, as well as some postings on lighter side: http://uwindsor.ca/BetterTeaching. The Network also has a Facebook page: http://facebook.com/GATAnetwork; a Twitter page: http://twitter.com/GATAnetwork; and a YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/GATAnetwork.
Beyond the University of Windsor, there are thousands of resources to be found through links to other Teaching and Learning Centres and Associations. For example, The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) has an extensive network of linked information. Beginning your search here: http://www.stlhe.ca/en/links/teaching_centre.php, and here: http://www.stlhe.ca/en/links/other_higher_ed.php, you can follow link after link to find the specific information that interests you.
To get started, here are a few links that may interest you:
Good Practice: information by topic from the CTL at Queen’s University: http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/goodpractice/help/index.html
Teaching Tips Index from University of Hawaii: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/teachtip.htm
Faculty Focus, a collection of articles and posts by topic: http://www.facultyfocus.com/
The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Perdue University: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
Tomorrow’s Professor: http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php
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The nature of a Resources section is that it must be updated frequently. We hope you will let the GATA Network know if you discover information in the Handbook that needs to be updated, or when you discover a resource that can be added to these pages. Contact us at gata at uwindsor.ca.
Alec Couros is a professor of educational technology and media in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina.
In this video from December 2010, he describes some simple changes to K12 and higher ed and how they can change our understanding of education and what we’re capable of.
The GATA blog has been plagued with technical troubles for the past week. We’re working on it!
If you’re looking for a quick and simple way to create videos for your teaching or for your own assignments, there’s a new feature on YouTube called YouTube Create.
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