Supporting Graduate Teaching Assistants: Case Studies
Mock Classes and Marking Fayre: Experiential Training for Classics Graduate Teaching Assistants
The School of Classics has run a compulsory in-house training programme for its postgraduate teaching assistants for more than a decade. This programme has changed over the years but has always served to complement the mandatory training provided by IELLI and previous units with a similar remit. After completing observation of teaching by Classics staff, our trainees participate in a day of training and briefing activities. Most importantly, they each deliver a twenty-minute mock class in the morning and take part in a ‘marking fayre’ in the afternoon. For the mock classes, the trainees pick and prepare one tutorial from a representative sample of real small-group tutorials (we deliver five different prefixed pathways!). The trainees are briefed that this must be a genuinely interactive session. The roles of the mock classes’ ‘students’ are played by academic staff. Those staff provide on-the-spot feedback at the end of each class. Trainees observe each other’s sessions and hear everyone’s feedback. For the marking fayre, the School’s postgraduate teaching mentor supplies the students with anonymized samples of submitted work which have been marked. In the first exercise they attempt to match separated feedback and marks with the right piece of work. In the second exercise they have a go at assigning and justifying a mark to an essay in accordance with our criteria, and without having any sight of the original feedback and mark. Much discussion, debate and careful explanation usually ensue before the ‘real’ marks are revealed.
Feedback from our trainees shows that the mock classes and marking fayre yield many benefits. They act as ‘simulators’ of real teaching and assessment which offer a safe and relatively inconsequential space for practising classroom management and assessment. Trainees use these sessions to seek advice and raise questions well in advance of their first real class. This type of training also fosters good discussion of subject-specific challenges and Classics’ various EDI goals because it is grounded in real experience and in what we actually teach. (Most of our first years have never been taught about the classical worlds before and some of our most central topics require sensitive treatment). Finally, our training day welcomes our postgraduates to a supportive and collegial teaching culture dedicated to sharing best practice. We ‘old hands’ learn from our trainees’ solutions and suggestions just as much as they learn things from us.
Dr Jon Hesk (current postgraduate teaching mentor, School of Classics)
Weekly Meetings for Graduate Teaching Assistants: A Collaborative Support Practice
Background: Sub-honours Directors (who are also Module Coordinators for the core Sub-honours modules in Management) brought in this practice to support our GTAs during Covid. This was instituted by Dr Laurence Lasselle and Dr Neha Gopinath. Dr Benet Reid and Sam Mansell took this forward over the last 2 years.
This practice unfolds as follows: As soon as the GTA teams are finalised, Dr Reid and Dr Mansell circulate diary invitations for online meetings to be held one week in advance of each tutorial with the GTAs. These meetings last 45 minutes. A few days before the meeting, the Sub-honours Directors send the teaching team the tutorial exercise and GTA guidance notes (drawn up by the lecturer). This provides tutors with an opportunity to review the exercise and readings and consider any questions they may wish to ask the lecturer in the online meeting. These meetings are recorded so tutors can catch up later if they’re unable to attend.
In the first meeting: The Sub-honours Directors begin by outlining the practical aspects of tutoring on MN1001/MN1002, MN2001/MN2002, including attendance-taking, student queries around assessments, office hours, referring students to Student Services and IELLI. The lecturer then reviews the forthcoming tutorial exercise and tutors can ask for clarification of the tutorial content.
In subsequent meetings: The Sub-honours Directors begin with a review of the most recent tutorial, in which tutors reflect in turn on what went well and what didn’t in their own classes. These conversations provide tutors with support and reassurance in their own teaching practice. Furthermore, the lecturer and more experienced tutors often share tips for handling the challenges that less experienced tutors (e.g., PGRs) may be encountering for the first time. Sub-honours Directors also make sure to pass on any positive feedback received from the student reps to individual tutors. This is sent in writing to that tutor so that they can use it for future job applications.
In the final meeting: after the review of the final tutorial, a debrief on the module as a whole is held. Tutors make suggestions for how the tutorials could be improved for the following year (feed forward). Tutors are of course invited to be in touch with Sub-honours Directors about anything else that arises at any point which creates a supportive environment.
Dr Mahmoud (Maka) Khalik (current Director of Teaching for the Department of Management)
A Structured Approach to Preparing and Supporting History Graduate Teaching Assistants
History’s approach to preparing PGR for sub-honours teaching, and for supporting them through and following the semester has been developed over several years, drawing upon the experiences of PGRs, their tutees and the module coordinators who rotate every two to three years.
PGRs who wish to teach must complete a form which records their preferred module, based on their area of expertise and level of experience; it requires them to complete the ‘Diversity in the Workplace’ course. Teaching is allocated by the DoT based on each semester’s available staff and student numbers, and, with an eye on their professional development, whether a PGR has been given the opportunity to teach previously. Teaching PGRs are provided with a code of conduct and access to their own intranet site; module coordinators follow a checklist which covers the necessary steps for the induction and support of GTAs. *(see bottom of the post)
GTAs are prepared for teaching and marking by the module coordinator first by means of a pre-semester briefing, then an early-semester marking school, and they are part of the close-of-semester debrief and planning session. They receive a teaching pack which gives them specialist guidance on each tutorial topic, some of which are less familiar to them. In addition to the intellectual rationale of the tutorial, its pedagogical purpose and expectations of the students, this guidance engages with questions of equality, diversity and difference. It highlights the historical and transferrable skills practised each week.
Module coordinators act throughout as mentors to GTAs, and they provide guidance on IT systems, marking and feedback, tutorial design and management, coursework moderation and the management of student issues. Coordinators will attend one tutorial taught by a first-time GTA to offer advice, and will ensure that all high or low marks awarded by GTAs are moderated. Coordinators will discuss MEQ feedback from tutorial groups to help teaching PGRs with professional development. GTAs who have taught more than once may be eligible to teach the more demanding HI2001, a transition to Honours, or be invited to contribute to exam marking.
Dr Matt McLean (current Director of Teaching in the School of History)
* The School of History’s checklist has formed the basis of a university-wide Sub-honours Module Coordinator Notes, available here Module Coordinator notes.docx