The 2019 Teaching Assistant Institute ran Jan. 15–18 at the UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology. It brought TAs, undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of faculties and departments together in order to gain knowledge and exchange learning about TAship.
The institute focused on five core themes: TA Wellness, Teaching and Learning Space(s), Experiential Learning, Teaching with Technology and Teaching Skills. Sessions often included multiple themes to show the connections between these integral elements of TAing. Participants who attended at least three sessions under one theme were provided with a letter of completion.
“We invite TAs to see their TAship as part of their overall career development, rather than just a thing to pay the bills — which it also is for many graduate students,” co-organizer Joseph Topornycky said.
“If they think of their TAship as part of their early career, [then they] build towards professional skills they’re going to need [in their careers] during their graduate program. A lot of graduate students only start thinking about their careers towards the end of their program, but this gives them a way to prepare a broad skillset which they can use within or outside academia by doing something they’re doing anyway in an intentional way.”
Colin Dring, a PhD student in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems and a Graduate Student Facilitator at CTLT, and Kyle Nelson, a Community Engaged Learning Officer at the Centre for Community Engaged Learning, hosted the first session of the Institute, TAing a Community Engaged Learning Course.
The session engaged with the themes of Teaching and Learning Spaces and Experiential Learning. By structuring a course that engages students through work with community partners, benefits are created for both the students and the community in which they serve. Community partner priorities drive collaboration. Viewing their work through an asset based lens can allow students to leverage and build on the strength of the community. Dring and Nelson emphasized the CORE Principles, which embraces the idea of the community as a holder of knowledge. This approach to learning shifts the narrative from research as exploitative and higher education institutions as the holders of knowledge to a symbiotic relationship where students serve their communities and community partners benefit from their research.
The TA Institute’s design stems from TAs’ need for “high-impact and immediately applicable teaching skills,” according to co-organizer, Shaya Golparian.
“One of the things that has definitely evolved over the years is the ability to cut down to the essentials in a way that isn’t superficial. Learning objectives’ evolution [has occurred] through the experience of facilitators and TA feedback — we’ve been able to hone in on high impact-skills that we can develop in that time. We have that application focus,” Topornycky said.
Many sessions during the TA Institute focused on essential teaching skills, such as one which focused on the ability to lead and direct classroom discussions. Attendees were taught how to implement the ORID Process (Objective, Reflective, Interpretative, Decision): four stages of questioning that facilitators can use when leading discussions.
Structured discussion techniques were integrated throughout the session, enabling participants to reflect on their strategies. CTLT’s Graduate Student Facilitators, Rowshan Rahmanian and Emily Scribner, led participants through a brainstorming exercise, which provided an opportunity for session participants to share their concerns, as well as discussion leading techniques which had been proven effective in classes they had taken and/or taught.
TA wellness was also an integral part of the Institute. Participants discussed self-advocacy and negotiation strategies, as well as time management skills. The organizers have balanced the competing demands of graduate school themselves, and recognize the conflicts which can arise when one is managing deadlines from research and coursework, teaching and TAing, as well as maintaining their own personal relationships, hobbies and personal development, Golparian said.
“A number of themes are really around core design and delivery skills, and we’ve also got themes that are more forward looking, [such as] emergent needs. Wellness came up as a response to an ongoing investigation into TA Wellness which Shaya and [PhD Candidate in Sociology] Nicole Malette are working on,” Topornycky said.
“One of the things that I usually try to stay away from is making decisions about what the TAs need, [instead] listening to what the TAs say they need,” Golparian said.
She explains that in the future, wellness will be incorporated into every session, as it impacts TAs personally and professionally.
In other sessions, participants were able to learn about how the now fully integrated online learning platform, Canvas, provides an experiential learning experience for students through three sessions specifically focused on integrating technology into the classroom.
“A lot of the work that we do in our team involves building capacity within departments and designing and delivering customized departmental TA training sessions upon request,” Golparian said, adding that instruction that compliments the TA Institute’s initiatives transcends disciplines.
“During institutes, parts of the workshop are focused on ‘How do I lock this back into context?’ ‘What do I need to change to apply this to political science or microbiology?’ There is a focus on ‘How do I contextualize this in my own discipline?’ There is a benefit to exploring those things in an interdisciplinary environment,” Topornycky said.
Ultimately, it is up to the TAs themselves to use the skills taught in the Institute to develop and further their career, Topornycky said.
“We’re looking for these programs to help people teach and learn effectively — whatever that means to them.”
To find out more about TA programming, visit https://ctlt.ubc.ca/programs/graduate-student-ta-programs/