Greetings all,
I am an Assistant in Math at Florida State University and part of my
job is to coordinate the training and evaluation of our TA's.
We usually have a 3-4 day training session before the semester begins
to get new TA's ready for recitations. We also have a 6 week course (5
hr/week) during the summer for both new and old TA's that goes into all
aspects of teaching both recitations and solo. This semester we are
trying a 6 week workshop (1.25 hr/week) focused solely presentations.
Historically, most of our TA's were asked to begin graduate school in
the summer so they could take our 6 week course. More recently, with
budget cuts only a small portion of our new TA's are now asked to begin
in the summer. We are also getter quite a few graduate students that do
not plan to go into academics. We have a good financial math and bio
math program that has attracted many students planning to go into
industry. Unfortunately, that also means that we have a lot of TA's
that do not see the value of teacher training.
Anyhow, I want to change our program so that it balances the needs of
our department to have qualified teachers with the needs of the
graduate students to not be "unreasonably" burdened with demands on
their time. I use quotes because what is an unreasonable burden is
debatable, but it is pretty clear that requiring a full 6 week TA class
is considered unreasonable for many of our TA's. I have some thoughts
on the directions I might take, but I think I will leave it unsaid for
now and instead ask what ideas do you have? Also, I would welcome any
materials you would be willing to share with me such as TA training
manuals, schedules, observations forms, and other misc forms or
information you find useful. Please feel free to use the e-mail address
given below to respond directly to me if you wish.
Thank you ahead of time for your feedback and/or materials!
Penelope Kirby
________________________________
Penelope Kirby
TA Training and Evaluation Coordinator
Department of Mathematics
Florida State University
Tallahassee FL 32306-4510
(850)644-0667, 108-E MCH
e-mail: pkirby(a)math.fsu.edu
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