Penn Graduate Student Center

Deadline: Friday, February 24, 2012

Be A TA Trainer!

Every year the Center for Teaching and Learning asks experienced TAs to apply to help train new TAs. The Center needs students in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities to lead new TAs in workshops such as:

   * Grading in the Humanities and Qualitative Social Sciences
   * Grading in the Quantitative Social & Natural Sciences
   * Leading Discussions in the Humanities
   * Leading Discussions in Quantitative Social & Natural Sciences
   * Teaching Problem Solving Recitations
   * Being an Effective Lab TA

Trainers will prepare to train other TAs by participating in several day-long workshops. Applicants should expect to be available for two days in May and must be available during the entire week of August 27-August 31. They will receive a $1,400 stipend.

2012 Workshop Leader Application

Applications (which should include the applicant’s CV) are due the last Friday in February (February 24, 2012). You may send completed applications electronically to CTLtraining@sas.upenn.edu.

If you have questions about TA training contact Cathy Turner at 215.898.1686.

Center for Teaching and Learning and the Graduate Student Center co-sponsor a series of workshops for graduate students, especially TAs, who are interested in learning and improving their teaching skills.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM
Room 305, Grad Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Jen Gerrish, CTL Graduate Fellow, Classical Studies

Most instructors find their students, even the best ones, struggling with a range of problems : reading overload, test-taking anxiety, homesickness, overbooked social calendars.  Often these challenges leave students struggling academically. In these situations, it can be difficult for TAs and instructors to know when, how, and to what extent to intervene. What problems are our responsibility? What are we equipped to handle on our own, and to whom can we refer students for additional help? Participants in the workshop will develop some specific strategies for addressing these questions in their own teaching while also considering when and how to encourage students take advantage of the resources available to struggling students at Penn.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Conference Room, Graduate Student Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Claire Bourne, CTL Graduate Fellow, English

How can we use in-class writing as an exercise in stimulating student engagement with the central questions and texts of the courses we teach? From short free writes that allow students time to reflect on an image, a concept, or a problem to sustained collaborative writing sessions that foster the spirit of compromise, in-class writing has the potential to deepen students’ investment in course material, provide a low-risk staging ground for ideas, learn new skills, and inspire original thought. In this workshop, we will explore the benefits of in-class writing activities, discuss how to design such activities, and consider ways to integrate writing effectively into our lesson plans.

Monday, February 27, 2012, 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Conference Room, Graduate Student Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Beth Hallowell, CTL Graduate Fellow, Antrhopology

This workshop will focus on what we, as instructors, can do to help students understand gender beyond their initial ideas about the topic.   By thinking about what hinders students’ understanding gender as an analytical tool, we will discuss how to help students rethink their own assumptions to develop their own abilities as thinkers and scholars.  In addition, we will discuss how to help students bring the analytical tools they develop in our class to the world outside class.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Room 305, Graduate Student Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Megan Potteiger, CTL Senior Graduate Fellow

Live by it or loathe it, PowerPoint (or other presentation software) is one of the teaching tools that we have available to us as lecturers and teaching assistants.  It can deliver organized and legible notes to any size lecture and provide a medium for visual representation of classroom concepts, but also can inhibit student engagement and interaction.  This workshop will explore the whens, wheres, whys, and hows of using PowerPoint as an effective means in the classroom and examine the implications of incorporating this technology into our own teaching.

Thursday, March 22, 2012, 12:30 PM - 02:00 PM
Room 305, Graduate Student Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Dan DiMassa, CTL Graduate Fellow, Germanic Languages and Literatures

As representatives of our disciplines, we all face a similar challenge in teaching undergraduates: how do we convey our excitement for our field such that it engages an audience of non-specialists? While some of our students dive in headfirst from the start, our focus will be on those who remain hesitant. To that end, we will discuss strategies for engaging students, using enthusiasm to aid in learning, and making our courses "feel" relevant.

Monday, March 26, 2012, 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Room 305, Graduate Student Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Tara Liss-Marino, CTL Graduate Fellow, Communication

Tuesday, April 03, 2012, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 305, Graduate Student Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Rosella Cappella, CTL Graduate Fellow, Political Science, and Emil Pitkin, CTL Graduate Fellow, Statistics

Statistics are everywhere and can be an excellent teaching tool. However, most of us, including our students, are unfamiliar with the jargon.  The goal of this workshop is to discuss ways to use stats in the classroom most effectively.  How much statistics do students need to know, and how deeply should they understand? How should we teach statistics, and in teaching, what should we emphasize? How can students be taught about the many abuses of statistics without cooling them to its usefulness?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Room 305, Graduate Student Center, 3615 Locust Walk
Rachel Guberman, CTL Graduate Fellow, History