Graduate Teaching Fellows are an integral part of the University’s teaching team, often assisting professors and leading discussion sections or their own classes. While some GTFs may have little or no teaching experience, there are campus resources to help them improve their pedagogical skills.
This week, GTFs can learn more about teaching in “Get Savvy” workshops sponsored by the University’s Teaching Effectiveness Program. The workshops, which began Tuesday and run until Friday, are available to all faculty and staff. Topics are diverse and include sessions on how to get students to talk, how to make the class more active and how to help students with difficult texts.
The Teaching Effectiveness Program, a branch of Academic Learning Services, also offers workshops throughout the year for teachers who want to become more adept in the classroom.
“I think anyone going into the classroom … they should know what they’re doing,” TEP Director Georgeanne Cooper said.
The TEP workshops are just one form of training GTFs may receive before taking on the responsibility of leading a discussion or lab section.
Journalism GTF Tara Lohan said assisting a professor helped her prepare for leading her own lab.
“Initially it was difficult because I didn’t have any teaching experience, but it got easier as it went,” she said.
Lohan said she did have four years of professional experience as a writer for magazines and newspapers, which gave her the background needed on the material she would cover in class. But she added that learning how to teach students could only come through experience in the classroom.
“A lot of stuff you have to sort of learn on the go,”she said.
Petra Hagen, graduate secretary for the University School of Journalism and Communication, said GTFs are selected mostly based on their past professional experience in a media- or journalism-related field. She added that GTFs have a working knowledge of the subject matter because many of them have taken the classes for which they lead discussion, and they often assist professors in a lecture before they move on to leading their own lab sections.
Jeff Ostler, associate professor and head of the history department, said many of the history GTFs don’t have teaching experience, but they do have strong academic careers.
“The decisions we’re making are really about academic merit and academic promise,” he said.
Ostler said history GTFs are not required to attend workshops, but many do on their own. They also get much of their training from working closely with professors.
History GTF Tyler Fall said he feels comfortable with his ability to lead discussion sections because he was a substitute teacher at a middle school, and he gets tips from other GTFs as well as professors.
“The professor who teaches the class has always given me ample advice,” he said. “It’s not a matter of just being thrown into a situation.”
Fall has taken workshops to learn more about managing a classroom and how to relate to students, which he said is important for getting students to participate.
Students have different opinions on GTFs’ effectiveness as teachers.
Freshman Jenny McMahon said her psychology GTF creates a welcome environment by urging students to discuss material together.
“He really cares about what your opinion is,” she said, adding that he presents himself professionally but isn’t as intimidating as a professor.
Freshman Natasha Yeoman said she wasn’t so lucky. She said she dropped a class at the beginning of the term because she felt her math GTF didn’t have enough experience or grasp on the material to lead a lab section.
“She didn’t explain everything,” Yeoman said, adding that at one point the students had to show the GTF how to do a math problem.
Cooper said that even if GTFs do know the material well, it isn’t always enough to make them good teachers.
“It’s much, much more complex than just delivering information,” she said. “That may or may not have anything to do with whether (students) are learning.”
TEP also offers a one-day training class for faculty and staff in September that Cooper describes as “a very intense day” of training. It was originally five days long, but not enough people could fit it into their schedules. She said that although this leaves little time for training, more people are able to participate, adding that last September about 200 GTFs attended.
Lohan said she would probably attend more workshops if she had the time, or if they counted toward the hours GTFs are required to work.
“With the graduate schedules, often our days are full,” she said.
For more information on TEP, visit http://tep.uoregon.edu.