Teaching Assistants' Training Program

Joel Rodgers, TATP Humanities Trainer
Alex Motut, TATP Social Sciences Trainer

After a few weeks into the term, how do we know if our class is going well? Assessing our teaching at the end of a course can be difficult enough, yet it’s equally important to hear and respond to our students’ feedback on our teaching while we still have time to modify our approach in the classroom. But how should we ask for this kind of mid-course feedback? And how should we respond to the sometimes troubling answers students may give us? How do we decide what we should change while we’re running a course or tutorial? In this two-hour workshop, we will explore answers to these questions in order to help us assess and adapt our teaching “on the fly.” Participants will acquire research-based strategies for collecting, interpreting, and responding to the kinds of feedback on our teaching that students can offer us during the term. During the session, participants will draft or propose a mid-course evaluation tool to use in their classrooms, and they will develop a plan for responding productively to not only the feedback they aim to collect but the unanticipated comments students make throughout the term.