Poster (April 2010): Physics & Astronomy TA Professional DevelopmentWe have created a TA training workshop which will run during the first week of classes every September. In the workshop, the TAs will:
Graduate student Mya Warren spearheaded this effort and assembled a strong team (Joss Ives, Sandy Martinuk) to develop and run a very successful two-day workshop, which started in the beginning of 2007 Fall Term. The workshop was required for incoming graduate students and available to veterans as well. A system of mentor TAs was initiated to provide a structure in which senior graduate students can oversee other graduate students in the first year undergraduate courses and help to develop their teaching skills.
Further improvements to the TA training program have been implemented in Fall 2008 with more students contributing to the development and long-term continuity (Veenstra). An addition to the program in 2008 was the mentor TAs taking TAG’s course in Peer Evaluation to prepare them for providing feedback to the TAs under their supervision. This program is enhanced by a new graduate course in pedagogy in Physics & Astronomy: PHYS 520, Teaching Techniques in Physics and Astronomy. This course exposed students to current PER literature and culminated in the development of a set of Invention Activities that will be deployed in courses next year.
In 2009, the TAs were asked for input on how to improve TA retention in first year labs and solve various other TA-raised issues. A major outcome of this process was the creation of a departmental committee with both faculty and TA representation, that will start operating beginning with the '10-'11 academic year, and whose tasks are to maintain the continuity and quality of the TA training program, to decide the assignment of TA jobs, to reward outstanding TAs and to solve various other TA issues. The TA training program took place again very successfully this year with a change to the model. There was a one day introductory workshop. Then ‘super-TAs’ were deployed in each of the large multi-section courses and given the task of developing a course-specific training as a follow-up through the early weeks of the term.
The TAs play a critical role in facilitating the new tutorial activities in ASTR 310 and ASTR 311. Each tutorial package includes extensive “TA Guidelines” for running the lab which not only list the steps necessary to run the activity but, when possible, explain the pedagogical justification for how and why each step is included. Before each tutorial, the TAs meet with the course instructor and STLF Peter Newbury to review the activity, with emphasis on why the steps are important and if necessary, what not to do because it could defeat the goal of the activity (for example, by describing an expert solution before beginning an invention activity.) We try to make the tutorials an authentic teaching experience for the TAs, by monitoring their presentation, giving them immediate feedback and welcoming their “colleague-to-colleague” feedback on the activity. Similar approaches to training the TAs for other large courses (i.e. PHYS 100 lab, PHYS 153 tutorials, etc.) are being tested and implemented in various first year courses.
The following TA training materials were used in September 2008: Schedule
Handbook
Slides for all sections: Introduction, Learning to Teaching, Problem Solving, TAing by Questioning, Working with Groups, Marking, Formative Evaluation and Running the Big Show.
To visit the UBC Department of Physics & Astronomy TA Training Course Website, click HERE.
This program is enhanced by a new graduate course in pedagogy in Physics & Astronomy: PHYS 520, Teaching Techniques in Physics and Astronomy, offered for the first time in the 2008 Fall Term. This course exposed students to current physics education research literature and culminated in the development of a set of Invention Activities that will be deployed in courses next year.
