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Making the most of your teaching assistantship experience Melissa A Kenney Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 ([email protected]) Many graduate students and their advisors approach the teaching assistantship (TAship) as a means to a stipend. Yet there is much to be gained from viewing a TAship not simply as required service, but as a unique opportunity to gain professional development skills in teaching and effective communication. If you are like me, your first TAship was (or will be) overwhelming, as you try to balance teaching duties, coursework, research, and time with family and friends. I had little training, but wanted to be a good teacher, and quickly realized that I had to take control of my TAship to gain the skills I sought. I therefore took advantage of university-wide pedagogical training, co-taught a course, and wrote articles on teaching. I also received a grant to develop TA support materials for our department, which included a manual, help sheets, and workshops (Kenney 2007). Based on my experiences and on advice from other graduate students and instructors at various universities, I have developed some tips to help students get the most from their TAship: (1) Communicate effectively from the beginning. Many TAship problems are the result of poor communication with the lecturing professor. The best time to ask questions and seek clarification is before the first day of class. Nevertheless, you should continue to communicate regularly throughout the semester, via e-mail or meetings (see Kenney [2007]). (2) Know your campus support staff and academic r e s o u rces. TAs keep class logistics running smoothly. Knowing who to talk to when you need help (eg the IT or library staff), or to whom students should be referred when they need help (eg academic resource centers), is more important than having all of the answers yourself. (3) Control what you can, not what you can’t. Given that you must balance teaching with coursework and research, being organized helps. It is important to clarify grading and other duties at the beginning of the semester. If you anticipate any difficulties in attending classes or meeting deadlines, it will be much easier to make accommodations with the other TAs or the professor early in the semester.

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(4) Seek out oppor tunities to gain teaching experience and evaluations. You might find yourself doing a TAship for a class where you do little or no teaching. If you want more teaching responsibilities, ask! Most professors welcome the chance to let a TA give lectures, lead discussions, or design assignments. Your TAship is often the first opportunity to gain professional development in teaching. Be proactive and seek assignments that will give you the greatest return on your investment of time. Be certain to obtain feedback and evaluations of your teaching for future use in teaching statements and portfolios. (5) Be enthusiastic – it’s contagious! When you bring your passion to the classroom, the students will become excited about the topic. Your enthusiasm may even inspire students to explore careers in ecology or environmental science. View every class as a unique opportunity to share and communicate something you know to an audience. The skills you gain in effective presentation style will serve you well, whether in future conference talks or classroom lectures. (6) Model life-long lear ning. Teaching is not like taking your prelims; realize that the students are not testing your knowledge of the subject when you walk into the classroom. It’s acceptable to say, “That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer, but let’s figure it out together.” Even the most renowned scholars make errors that their students correct and have gaps in their knowledge. The students won’t judge you as incompetent, but as human. (7) Va r y teaching strategies to account for diverse lear ning styles. Not every student learns best from lectures. You will therefore be more effective in the classroom if you can use a variety of teaching methods to illuminate your main points (see Gardner [2006] and McKeachie et al. [2006]). One easy way to get started is to read the Pathways to Scientific Teaching series in back issues of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (eg Finelli et al. 2005). (8) Take advantage of training oppor tunities. While some instructors may provide training, almost all universities offer teaching workshops through a teaching and learning center (eg Michigan State University 2007). Additionally, if you are a nonnative English speaker, your campus may have special resources through the international office to help you adjust to teaching and cultural differences

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in the classroom. Your fellow graduate students can also provide great advice, particularly if they have completed TAships in previous years. Remember, learning is a journey both for the students and for the teacher. Don’t worry if it doesn’t go quite right the first time; keep working, learning, and practicing.

 Acknowledgements I thank A Sutton-Grier, D James, E Thorsos, and the Duke Consortium for Scholarship on Teaching and Learning for providing useful comments. This research was partially funded by a grant from the Duke University Graduate School.

 Reference

Finelli C, Ebert-May D, and Hodder J. 2005. Collaborative learning – a jigsaw. Front Ecol Environ 3 : 220–21. Gardner H. 2006. Multiple intelligences: new horizons. New York, NY: Perseus Books Group. Kenney MA. 2007. Teaching assistant support materials and training workshop for the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. www.duke.edu/~mak22/ Pedagogy.htm. Viewed 15 Feb 2007. McKeachie WJ and Svinicki M. 2005. McKeachie’s teaching tips: strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Michigan State University. 2007. MSU teaching assistant program. www.tap.msu.edu/index.htm. Viewed 8 Mar 2007.

Faculty response N o r man L Christensen Jr Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 ([email protected]) Melissa Kenney’s thoughts on how teaching assistants should make the most of their teaching opportunities reminded me of how important my own TA experiences were in launching my academic career. Yes, the stipend was important, but my TAship really was the only opportunity I had to develop (or not) the skills for what would eventually consume fully half of my academic life. Kenney’s tips are spot on! More than kindling memories of my graduate student days, Kenney’s essay caused me to wonder, to what extent do we among the graduate faculty give serious thought to

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the important role that TAships play in the education of our graduate students and to various strategies we might employ to enhance the value of a TAship? Speaking entirely for myself, I would have to answer, not enough. So, as counterpoint to the first five of Melissa’s tips, let me offer several suggestions aimed at others like me. (1) Communicate ef fectively fr om the beginning. Establish clear expectations for your TAs and communicate them early and often. Certainly, expectations with regard to class participation, grading, and the like are important. Equally important, we should establish and communicate expectations about pedagogical development and performance. (2) Know your campus support staf f and academic r e s o u rces. In my experience, graduate students are often better connected than their advisors in this realm. This has been especially true with regard to my ability to fully utilize rapidly evolving technological resources. (3) Control what you can, not what you can’t. In the midst of trying to achieve some reasonable balance among the various forces pulling on our time as faculty, we can easily lose sight of the equally complex array of issues that swallow up the time of our TAs. It is useful to remind ourselves and our TAs that we typically have more control of our time than we are willing to admit. (4) Seek out opportunities to gain teaching experience and evaluations for your graduate students. Many graduate programs set some minimum level of TA participation, but relatively few programs systematically set expectations for what graduate students should take away from their TAships. Similarly, few programs provide systematic evaluation for TAs. These are missed opportunities for our students, but they also create challenges for us as faculty. In letters of recommendation, we often have little information upon which to base comments about our students’ teaching aptitudes and abilities. It is no surprise that we find teaching ability nearly impossible to assess among candidates for faculty positions. (5) Be enthusiastic – it’s contagious! Whatever our time constraints and conflicts, most of us really enjoy teaching. Share that enthusiasm with your TAs as well as your students. In the midst of trying to get the most out of our TAs, it is easy to lose sight of the importance of encouraging our TAs to make the most of their experience. Thanks to Kenney for bringing this back into focus.

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