Teaching Assistants' Training Program

Description

Many of us are familiar with the dominant narratives around resiliency and “grit” that are currently circulating in public discourse – “You need to have grit to succeed,” or “you learn best through adversity.” This discourse has led scholars and educators to consider the central role that emotions play in teaching and learning. Emotional intelligence (EI) is fundamentally bound up in teaching and learning, but many teachers tend to ignore emotions in the classroom, perhaps out of fear that emotions will overpower the learning objectives or push up against professional boundaries. Furthermore, when we talk about EI, we also need to address and be critical of the contexts shaping our emotional lives – not just as TAs/Cis — but also as learners ourselves. 

Working both individually and in groups, participants in this workshop will be tasked with actively reflecting upon and employing EI practices. Discussions and activities will focus on:

• Strategies for interacting with students on personal and professional levels
• Labeling, understanding, and regulating our own emotions
• Expressing what we feel in a way that will not upset others, i.e. “setting boundaries”
• Considering others’ feelings and listening to them without judgement

This workshop is not prescriptive and will not offer a recipe for how to be the most emotionally intelligent, but rather will facilitate the development of this often-underexamined aspect of teaching and learning. By the end of this session, TAs and CIs will be able to effectively develop concrete strategies for applying EI principles to their teaching.