Developing and Evaluating a Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Training Course in the Chemistry Department of a Large American University

Abstract

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play an essential role in the teaching of introductory chemistry courses at many higher education institutions. On the basis of best practices suggested by the literature, we developed our GTA training course to focus on modeling best practices in the classroom, providing opportunities for incoming GTAs to try new teaching methodologies and reflect on their teaching, and observing and giving feedback on their teaching throughout the course. Here we describe the structure of a GTA training course, provide our course evaluation methods, and present end-of-semester survey data from trainee GTAs (t-GTAs) and experienced GTA (e-GTA) volunteers that helped with the course. The findings indicate that the majority of t-GTAs appreciated the course structure and topics. In particular, t-GTAs found discussions helped them learn the material and greatly appreciated the opportunity to observe someone teaching and be observed during their teaching. Several areas for improvement were also identified, including more opportunities to observe peers, additional topics such as classroom management, and greater support in applying course topics to individual teaching environments. e-GTAs on the other hand reported positively on how the course impacted their own professional development through honing their observational skills and their ability to provide constructive feedback, as well as adding to their own knowledge on teaching methodologies through observing t-GTAs. Intending to provide insight on how course evaluation data can be used to inform change, we discuss our findings in terms of the specific changes that will be made at Purdue Chemistry in future course iterations, as well as in terms of implementing or revising GTA training at other institutions. We hope that the course structure, evaluation approach, and data described here provide insight into other institutions interested in changing their own GTA programs.

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Evaluation method for network multimedia teaching quality of English based on information entropy

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Design and Delivery of a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) Program in a UK University: Experiences and Perspectives

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