Teaching Assistants' Training Program

Storytelling is a universal language that does more than merely relay facts. Sharing stories serves as a valuable tool for building community, supporting critical thinking, and facilitating equitable access. Whether by integrating narrative into lectures and tutorials, or by inviting students to share stories, storytelling-based activities invite an intentional yet reflexive engagement with the material. […]

‘TA 101: problem solving through the basics’ is an engaging workshop that will help you problem solve through many of the challenges of being a TA. This workshop will provide you time to reflect on your own teaching, come up with practical solutions to these problems, and provide you resources to help improve your teaching confidence.

While COVID-19 caused major disruptions to all students at the University of Toronto, the impact of this global crisis has been experienced unevenly by BIPOC groups. As we have seen, Asian North American, Black, and Indigenous communities have repeatedly endured violence and trauma in this time. The pandemic exacerbated existing educational inequities experienced by learners […]

Many people have been talking more openly about trauma in recent days – the trauma of the pandemic, domestic trauma, intergenerational and systemic trauma, trauma linked to geopolitical events, climate change, and so on. But how does trauma shape our approaches to teaching and learning? Trauma-informed practice keeps trauma, its prevalence, and how it affects […]

Regardless of discipline or format, good tutorials are often a product of deliberate and reflective planning—especially if they are to engage students and enhance course content. This workshop will provide strategies and tips for effective and efficient tutorial design. It will guide participants through crucial stages of tutorial planning, including: determining the teaching context (e.g., type of tutorial, overall course goals); identifying and adapting tutorial learning outcomes; […]

In this Community Discussion, we will create a space for individuals that self-identify as womxn or non-binary to share their experiences as students, teachers, and researchers in STEM at the University of Toronto. Our goal of this session is to provide womxn-identifying and non-binary folks in the STEM community an opportunity to interact with other […]

Hybrid, flipped, online, hyflex, synchronous, asynchronous: it can be challenging to navigate new terminologies and educational models, especially at a time when TAs increasingly move between different teaching formats and modes of delivery. This workshop will provide an overview of some of the key terms and models that characterize the educational landscape today. It will also outline particular considerations (e.g., accessibility, University policy, time management) for each mode of delivery and provide practical strategies […]

While tenure-track professorships may be the ultimate career goal for a large portion of graduate students, an increasingly precarious and competitive academic job market means that many individuals will pursue other types of work. “Alternative academic” (alt-ac) has been used to describe careers outside of traditional tenure-track faculty positions, but still within the university/academe (e.g., educational or curriculum developers, […]

In this community discussion, TAs will have an opportunity to discuss some of the challenges they have had as a TA. This session will provide an opportunity for all participants to work together to solve solutions to such challenges and provide tips that their fellow TAs may benefit from.

Contemplative practices are not oriented to the individual, but instead ask students to examine their thoughts and feelings in relation to classroom content and the greater context. By directing contemplative practices towards equity and anti-oppressive pedagogies, such embodied self-awareness can serve as a basis for structurally analyzing systems of oppression. In doing so, students are […]

This workshop will introduce you to the fundamentals of course design, from outcomes to assessments. We will outline the elements of effective outcomes and assessments, approached within a Universal Design for Learning framework. During the session, you will draft and receive feedback on the basic elements of course design, and you will leave the session […]

Experiencing setbacks and failures is common in academia. Unfortunately, academic culture is often characterized by competition and individualism, where experiences or recognition of failure are unwelcome. The purpose of this community discussion is to bring together teaching assistants to challenge the culture of silence around failure and co-create strategies to compassionately support students who are […]

This workshop is a continuation of the first workshop of Course Design Week (Fundamentals of Course and Assessment Design), in which we discussed how to determine the types assessments you should use in your course. Exams are one of the most frequently used assessment types, yet most CIs do not receive training on how to […]

In this workshop, we explore different types of data that you can use to optimize your course design and delivery. First, we will discuss “learning analytics”, which has been identified by Educause as one of the six new technologies expected to have a significant impact on postsecondary teaching and learning. We will discuss what learning […]

In this workshop, we will explore with participants the realities of what it’s like being womxn and non-binary in STEM, focussing on information specific to the Canadian context. We will draw inspiration from our Community Discussion on Gender Bias in STEM (held in February 2022), to highlight themes such as current gender gaps across career […]