TA Workshops & Seminars
UCSB’s TA Development Program Presents:
Spring 2012 TA Pedagogy Workshops
All session limited to 10 participants
RSVP to reserve your seat
“What do I do if..?”
Friday, April 6th, 11am-12pm
Location: 1120-Q Kerr Hall
Facilitator: Dr. Kim DeBacco, Instructional Development
This workshop is ideal for grad students who are starting out as TAs at UCSB in Spring Quarter, either for the first time, or after a break from teaching. Bring your concerns, which might stem from your own student experience, or might be one of the following: What if no one does the reading? What do I do with extra time? What do I do if a student is disruptive or breaks down in class? What about when the students dislike the professor or the professor is disorganized? What if the students don’t like me, the TA? This workshop will help you develop your confidence in handling these and other challenging situations in section or lab.
RSVP: Kim DeBacco: kim@id.ucsb.edu
Improving Your Teaching and Your Students’ Learning
Tuesday April 10th, 11:00am-12:00pm
Location: 1120-Q Kerr Hall
Facilitator: Dr. Kim DeBacco, Instructional Development
Are you looking for strategies to shift your teaching up a few notches? Aiming for the Certificate in College and University Teaching (and a great job) one day? In this workshop we will share and discuss tips for actively developing and documenting your growth and improvement as a TA including: using TA evaluation feedback and classroom assessment techniques to make positive changes, keeping a teaching journal, reading about teaching and learning, drafting a teaching philosophy statement, maintaining a teaching portfolio, working with a teaching mentor. Whether you are just starting out as a TA or eyeing the job market, this workshop will equip you with ways to demonstrate how you strive to improve the student learning experience with each course you teach.
RSVP: kim@id.ucsb.edu
Preparing your CCUT Portfolio
Wednesday April 11th, 3:00-4:00pm
Location: Kerr Hall 1120Q
Facilitator: Dr. Kim DeBacco, Instructional Development
The session will provide tips on writing the CCUT teaching portfolio including ways of presenting teaching materials, documenting student ratings, meeting the technology requirement, tone of the portfolio narration, and more. Participants need to have completed two of the CCUT requirements.
RSVP: kim@id.ucsb.edu
Micro-teaching Workshop
Friday April 13th, 10:00-11:30am
Location: 1120-Q Kerr Hall
Facilitator: Dr. Kim DeBacco, Instructional Development
Micro-teaching a fun, small group technique for gaining pedagogical insights and strategies by teaching others and learning from others. You are invited to come along and teach a small group of TAs how to do something ‘hands-on’ in 5 minutes or less. Why not teach us how to dance, mix a salad, or how to communicate about a topic in a foreign language, or show us how to build, draw or create something with lego, straws, or modeling clay? Alternatively, lead us through a tip or concept you give your undergrads in section. (You can draw on your special talents, but your research is off limits!) Through giving each other feedback on what we learned and what worked well, you will reflect on many subtle yet profound aspects of teaching: voice, gesture and movement, instructions, wait-time, sequencing, learning goals and possibly even assessment.
RSVP: kim@id.ucsb.edu
Interpreting your past ESCI TA evaluation results to improve your Spring quarter ratings.
Tuesday, April 17th, 4pm-5pm
Location: 1120-Q Kerr Hall
Facilitator: Dr. Lisa Berry, Instructional Development
Were your TA evaluations not as good as you had hoped for? Are you unsure about how to interpret the data? What can you do to get better evaluations this quarter? In this workshop, we will talk about how to use the feedback from ESCI scores to improve your teaching. We will also discuss how you can talk to students about TA evaluations to illicit more useful feedback. Please come to the workshop with your ESCI results and any questions you have about your TA evaluations.
RSVP: lisa@id.ucsb.edu
Effective Use of Technology in Section and Lab: What are best practices in your discipline?
Wednesday, April 18th, 3-4pm
Location: 1120-Q Kerr Hall
Facilitator: Dr. Lisa Berry, Instructional Development
In this workshop, participants will discover opportunities to enhance their teaching by leveraging technology. We will examine how technologies such as discussion forums, recorded voice comments, structured e-mails, chat sessions, wiki and blogs can be combined with in-class approaches to improve student learning outcomes. You will be asked to brainstorm how you might use technology to improve your feedback and assessment practices, and to help students become more responsible for their learning.
RSVP: lisa@id.ucsb.edu
Learning to Teach through Observation and Reflection
Tuesday, April 24th, 11am-12pm
RSVP by Friday, April 13th
Location: 1120-Q Kerr Hall
Facilitator: Dr. Lisa Berry, Instructional Development
Some of the most effective instructors get inspiration and new ideas by observing the way that others approach teaching and learning. In advance of this workshop, you will be given materials to conduct a structured observation of a class session (with the advance permission of the instructor). We will then meet to share our observations and reflect on how we can to use the “lessons learned” to adapt and improve our own teaching.
RSVP: lisa@id.ucsb.edu
International TA Discussion Workshop
Date and time to be decided upon by participants.
Location: Kerr Hall 1120-N
Facilitator: Dr. Kim DeBacco, Instructional Development
Please contact Kim about your availability.
This workshop will address the concerns of international TAs. Together we will identify strategies for starting and maintaining discussions in class, and review some tips for communicating clearly with students face-to-face and in writing. We will reflect on some particular practices and approaches to teaching that often challenge or confront international TAs facilitating discussion sections at UCSB.
Date and time to be decided upon by participants.
RSVP: Kim DeBacco: kim@id.ucsb.edu (x 2828).
Note: “GauchoSpace for TAs” workshops are offered by the Collaborate group in the College of Letters and Science. This introductory workshop is no longer recognized for departmental TA Training records or CCUT requirement #1.