Teaching Assistants' Training Program

Shawn Xiong, TATP Summer Sciences Trainer
Abdullah Farooqi, TATP Summer Humanities Trainer

Have you ever considered an alternative to multiple choice assessments? Want to improve students’ comprehension of content and engagement in your course, while developing their critical thinking skills? Do you know the benefits—to you and your students—of incorporating writing into your course curriculum?

In this workshop, participants will learn why and how to incorporate scaffolded writing assignments into their curriculum, and practice doing this with sample syllabi (no prep required). We will also discuss and practice practical writing activities that can be incorporated into the classroom with minimal prep. Participants will leave with concrete strategies and adaptable models and examples to use in their courses.

This workshop is suitable for those with instructor experience or who are planning on eventually teaching a course as primary instructor, who have an interest in improving students’ writing and learning about the benefits of increasing writing instruction in their courses. For those planning the curriculum of their summer courses, this workshop will be especially timely. The workshop will emphasize strategies that have been developed, deployed, and improved within the context of the Writing Instruction and Training (WIT) Initiative in the Faculty of Arts and Science, and will be run by two TATP trainers with several years’ experience in that program.

*This session can count as Skills Based Tutorials: Supporting Student Writing