Winter 2014

ST GEORGE CAMPUS

LOOKING AHEAD: DOCUMENTING YOUR TEACHING & PLOTTING YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Sara Carpenter, CTSI/TATP Acting Assistant Director

ELECTIVE

Many new TAs and instructors are unaware that in addition to their CV, junior scholars must also produce a teaching dossier, a portfolio that describes and documents their teaching expertise. This session focuses on providing TAs with practical tips on how to best describe, document, and demonstrate their teaching practice for grant, job, and fellowship applications. Get a head start by beginning your teaching career with an eye to collecting and preparing this documentation! Please note: This workshop is an extended version of the Documenting Your Teaching session that ran on TA Day 2013.

Thursday, January 16, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

AN INTRODUCTION TO GRADING IN THE HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES
Erin Vearncombe, TATP Humanities Trainer
Cristian Ches, TATP Social Science Trainer

CORE

Does your TA appointment at the University of Toronto focus mainly on grading?  If so, you are participating in an incredibly important form of teaching.  The feedback undergraduate students receive on papers is often the closest contact they have with a teacher at the university.  It is therefore imperative that we provide students with fair, constructive feedback that they can practically apply to their work.  Cristian and Erin are veteran TAs who will speak about how to make grading an act of effective and efficient teaching, presenting strategies and specific tools to use when assessing student work.

Monday, January 27, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

FOSTERING ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: NOBLE INTENTIONS & STICKY SITUATIONS

Martha Harris, Academic Integrity Officer, OSAI, Faculty of Arts & Science
Saira Mall, Manager of Academic & Collaborative Technology, CTSI

CORE

You are invigilating an exam for a course you have TA’d. Walking past a student’s desk in the exam hall, you notice an extra piece of paper peeking out from underneath the student’s exam paper. What do you do? Or…what if a student comes to you during an office hour with the first draft of an assignment, and all of the research is taken from the Internet? Or…what if your instructor asks you to assign a failing grade to an assignment you think might have been plagiarized? When is plagiarism plagiarism? When is collaborative work cheating? What is academic integrity, anyway, and how is a TA supposed to foster it?

Despite the best intentions, many teaching assistants and students will encounter these dilemmas when navigating course work. In this interactive session, we will grapple with these questions and more, and you will work through some scenarios (based on actual cases at the University of Toronto) to devise strategies for preventative measures and next steps in these ‘sticky situations’.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

TURNING “CONFLICT” INTO COLLABORATION: EFFECTIVE TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
Erin Vearncombe, TATP Humanities Trainer
Sandra Campeanu, TATP Sciences Trainer

CORE

Research in student engagement demonstrates that undergraduates value their relationships with TAs very highly, and that interaction with students outside of the classroom is key to engaging students in specific disciplines.  Individual consultations with students, often during office hours, can present a variety of situations.  Even situations of potential conflict – grade disputes, challenges to TA or course instructor authority, issues between students, managing student stress, etc. – can be turned into positive opportunities for discussion, reflection and growth.  This workshop will focus on developing concrete methods for navigating difficult or disruptive relationships between students, TAs and/or course instructors.  Facilitators and attendees will work through a series of case studies with the goals of effectively diagnosing “problem” situations and of turning consultations or “conflicts” into positive opportunities for teaching.  Active participation is essential to this workshop’s success, so please come prepared to contribute!

Wednesday, February 5, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES FOR EFFECTIVE GRADING IN THE SCIENCES & ENGINEERING
Leanne De Souza, TATP Sciences Trainer
Sandra Campeanu, TATP Sciences Trainer

CORE

Grading is central to teaching and serves as a form of feedback to students and instructors. Graded work informs learners and teachers about the effectiveness of learning goals and teaching goals. Most teaching appointments require grading as a primary duty or as part of other classroom duties. In the sciences, items for evaluation can include tutorial assignments, written lab experiments, scientific papers, and short answer tests.

Learning to grade effectively is especially important in the sciences as various skills, proficiencies and conceptual underpinnings of course material, are captured through the evaluation process. Therefore, in order to obtain pedagogical and learner-centered value from graded work, feedback must be meaningful and useful such that it helps students build on skills and learn from mistakes.  In this workshop, participants will learn strategies for efficient grading, how to deliver meaningful feedback and recognize feedback that is formative. We will also discuss managing grading workloads and grading disputes.

Thursday, February 6, 2014
10am – 12pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

ACTIVE LEARNING METHODS IN THE SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING
Ben Moulton, TATP Sciences Coordinator
Andreea Lupascu, TATP Sciences Trainer

CORE

Active learning is a teaching philosophy where students participate in the lesson, rather than passively listening. Primarily based on learning by doing, reflection, group discussion and teaching others, active learning techniques can increase retention and depth of understanding. These effective techniques can be used in myriad contexts including: lectures (big or small class-sizes), tutorials and labs.

In this workshop, we will discuss and demonstrate different active learning methods for Science and Engineering classrooms. Participants will then transfer these methods to their specific learning goals and disciplines.  By the end of the session, participants will have a list of ideas for incorporating active learning in their tutorial/lab environments and a list of resources they can use to further develop their active learning techniques.

Note: Please arrive on the hour for this session.

Friday, February 7, 2014
10am – 12pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

EFFECTIVE  COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR TEACHING TEAM: BUILDING POSITIVE WORKING ENVIRONMENTS
Sandy Romain, TATP Social Sciences Trainer
Cristian Ches, TATP Social Sciences Trainer

ELECTIVE

This session will examine strategies to foster successful relationships with your course instructors and fellow teaching assistants. Issues covered will include: academic policy, time management, maintaining a cohesive and productive teaching team, and tips for various working styles and needs.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014
1pm – 3pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

ENGAGING STUDENTS THROUGH WRITING – STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS
Lana Kuhle, TATP Course Instructor Training Coordinator
Erin Vearncombe, TATP Humanities Trainer

CORE

This workshop will focus on how to help students improve their writing skills. We’ll discuss various ways to engage your students through writing both inside and outside the classroom, and we’ll review key principles of effective grading that serve to support the development of writing skills in students. Workshop participants will not only have the opportunity to practice a variety of exercises that can be incorporated into tutorials, but will leave with a broad range of tools and strategies they can use in a variety of teaching settings in the future. This workshop will be useful to both TAs responsible for tutorials as well as grading only TAs.

Thursday, February 13, 2014
10am – 12pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

CRAFTING A TEACHING STYLE: AUTHENTIC ENGAGEMENT IN THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Sandy Carpenter, TATP Humanities Trainer
Elliot Storm, TATP Social Sciences Trainer

ELECTIVE

Creating a collaborative, stimulating and effective learning environment requires much more than attention to content. As TAs, we must also develop a confident, comfortable classroom presence, while at the same time making sure that we are connecting with students who have different personalities and learning styles. In this workshop, we will consider how we can develop and refine our teaching styles so we may authentically engage with a varied student body. Together, we will discuss strategies for becoming more confident and connected to our students, including methods of self-assessment, techniques for ‘reading’ the audience, and using body language to establish a dynamic classroom presence.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

THE GOAL IS STUDENT LEARNING: APPLYING PRINCIPLES OF BACKWARDS COURSE DESIGN
Sara Carpenter, CTSI/TATP Acting Assistant Director
Robin Sutherland-Harris, TATP Humanities Coordinator

ELECTIVE

It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day or minute-to-minute demands of teaching and the never-ending tensions around content. There can be a lot of pressure to focus on what comes next rather than on what comes last. But what happens when we begin where we want to end up – with the emphasis on student success and learning? This workshop will explore how you can make backwards course design work in your classroom, whether you are new to TAing or are more experienced. We will examine some of the theory around identifying learning outcomes and goals and experiment with how to make them effective classroom tools in both the short and long term. We will then make connections to additional concrete strategies for providing assessment and feedback that will help students achieve the goals you’ve set for them.

Thursday, February 27, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

THE ART OF LECTURING – STRATEGIC APPROACHES TO EFFECTIVE LECTURE-BASED TEACHING
Lana Kuhle, TATP Course Instructor Training Coordinator
Leanne De Souza, TATP Sciences Trainer

CORE

Lectures are a primary component of teaching in higher education and they are also one of the most complex forms of teaching. A strong lecture does much more than merely convey information, it conveys concrete principles that students can build upon through subsequent readings, tutorials, labs and independent study. Therefore, one of the fundamental challenges to designing an effective lecture is to understand how students process information and form functional knowledge of multi-faceted, complex course material.

In this workshop, we will examine the challenges of organizing & communicating content, and of fostering a deeper understanding of this content through lecture-based teaching. We will discuss strategies for designing lectures that help enhance student learning and deepen their knowledge. This workshop is aimed at graduate students who either teach or anticipate teaching in a lecture-based classroom. We ask that participants come to the session with an idea for a lecture they would like to deliver.

Friday, February 28, 2014
1pm – 3pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

IDENTIFYING YOUR TRANSFERABLE SKILLS (AND WHY THEY’RE SO IMPORTANT!)
Heather Kelly, Director, Career Centre Jonathan Turner, Career Educator, Career Centre

ELECTIVE

What skills have you developed from your teaching activities that have prepared you for multiple career options after graduation? Through interactive exercises and reflection activities, this workshop will help you begin to critically analyze your teaching assistant roles to identify the transferable skills you have developed.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

QUESTION, CRITIQUE, AND REFLECT: DEEPENING STUDENT LEARNING THROUGH CRITICAL THINKING
Andreea Lupascu, TATP Sciences Trainer
Sandy Carpenter, TATP Humanities Trainer

ELECTIVE

As educators, we require students to think critically about course materials, but many students may not understand how to engage critical thinking. Since critical thinking skills are essential in the learning process, it is important for us to articulate what critical thinking is and then help students develop these skills and apply them to course material.

In this workshop, the facilitators will discuss various aspects of critical thinking with the goal of helping TAs to deepen student learning by developing their critical thinking skills in and outside of the classroom. The workshop will focus on three basic sections: questioning, critique, and reflection. By the end of the session, the participants will have a list of ideas on how to incorporate these distinct components in their teaching and transfer them to specific fields or learning goals.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE LESSON PLANNING
Ben Moulton, TATP Sciences Coordinator
Robin Sutherland-Harris, TATP Humanities Coordinator

CORE

If you’ve ever struggled with how to thoroughly cover a topic, effectively organize material and manage your class or lab time? Then this session is for you. In this workshop, we’ll discuss the key elements of lesson planning. Understanding these elements of lesson design will help you to:

• plan a lesson that entails a clear learning outcome and a road-map for how to accomplish this
• get students prepared to learn
• streamline your content so you have an achievable goal in a given time
• build in time for discussion and active student interaction (i.e. achieve ‘deeper’ learning)
• wrap-up a class effectively so students can reflect on what they’ve learned and be ready for what comes next in the course

Because you will be asked to complete a lesson planner during the workshop, it is imperative that you come to the session with a key learning goal and a sense of possible content for one class you’d like to teach in mind (or for a real class you know you’ll be teaching shortly!).

Monday, March 10, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

CONNECTING TO THE REAL WORLD: HOW TO BE RELEVANT IN THE CLASSROOM
Bethany Osborne, TATP Social Sciences Trainer
Cristian Ches, TATP Social Sciences Trainer

ELECTIVE

We live in a technological world and our students have their fingertips on what is happening in the here and now.  As teaching assistants, we compete with “at your fingertips” information mediated through the internet. Rather than despairing that your class activities will never be as riveting as the information that students have constant access to, we believe that there are ways to integrate and connect course content to the real world, engaging students in new ways. Although students have instant access to information, this knowledge does not translate into the skills, knowledge or expertise that they will need to work in their future professions. This workshop will discuss how to develop tutorial content for the real world with the aim of establishing relevancy, connection and application. This is not limited to TAs who teach in the Social Sciences or Humanities, we will discuss techniques relevant to all disciplines.

This workshop will include strategies such as:

• using technology in the classroom to enhance the student learning experience
• using news articles and examining relevant statistics
• using real-life case studies and Problem-Based Learning as a learning model/driver
• working with students to develop work-related skills
• capitalizing on moments when you have student engagement
• figuring out student motivation in the course
• providing historical background and navigating recent events
• creating linkages between classroom activities and life after graduation

Tuesday, March 11, 2014
10am – 12:30pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

READING UP: INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR SUPPORTING STUDENT READING

Robin Sutherland-Harris, TATP Humanities Coordinator
Leanne De Souza, TATP Sciences Trainer

CORE

They did the reading…or did they? This common question presents itself to teaching assistants in classrooms across the disciplines. Students come to class unprepared to work with the readings. Why? Often, reading at university is challenging for our students. This workshop will examine the underlying barriers to successful reading in the undergraduate classroom. We will explore concrete strategies for supporting reading both inside and outside the classroom, and discuss methods to integrate reading strategies that promote comprehension through tutorials.

Thursday, March 13, 2014
1pm – 3pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES: THE HOW AND WHY OF CHECKING FOR STUDENT UNDERSTANDING
Andreea Lupascu, TATP Sciences Trainer

PEDAGOGY 102 
Sara Carpenter, CTSI/TATP Acting Assistant Director
Ben Moulton, TATP Sciences Coordinator
Lana Kuhle, TATP Course Instructor Training Coordinator

ELECTIVE

This workshop is designed to introduce students to some of the important and growing terrains of teaching in Canadian higher education. This theory-based workshop will ask students to consider why we have seen a growing emphasis on collaborative, applied, and diverse teaching methods across the disciplines and what this means for future forms of instruction in our units. We will consider the evidence-base and educational philosophy behind the expansion of university investment in a variety of pedagogical initiatives including cohort-based seminar teaching, writing intensive instruction, experiential learning, and undergraduate research opportunities. While this workshop is open to any graduate student with an interest in pedagogy, it is best suited to those students who are preparing for the job market and interested in exploring what ‘pedagogical innovation’ might mean for their own teaching.

Friday, March 21, 2014
10am – 12pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

PREPARING YOUR TEACHING DOSSIER
Michelle Majeed, TATP Social Sciences Coordinator

CORE

The teaching dossier is a comprehensive record of teaching activities and accomplishments that is now required in applications for permanent positions at the University of Toronto and at an increasing number of institutions across North America. In this session, we will review the elements of a successful teaching dossier and discuss how to use it as a framework for setting goals for future professional development. Since many TAs have limited teaching experience, what a new TA can do to develop the beginnings of a meaningful dossier will also be highlighted.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

GET EM’ TALKING: HOW TO PLAN AND RUN ENGAGING DISCUSSION-BASED TUTORIALS
Sandra Campeanu, TATP Sciences Trainer
Elliot Storm, TATP Social Sciences Trainer

CORE

It’s happened to all of us. Your course instructor assigns a text—maybe a straightforward textbook chapter, perhaps a challenging philosophical treatise—and your job is to facilitate an enlightening tutorial discussion. You arrive armed with brilliant discussion questions, but your queries are met with blank stares and dead silence. It seems like half the class hasn’t even read the text. When you finally goad students into speaking, a few comments are insightful but most are way off-base. As the discussion flounders, students become increasingly confused and disengaged. How do we, as TAs, deal with this painful scenario? What can we do to prevent it from arising in the first place? In this workshop, two veterans of discussion-based tutorials will offer concrete, practical solutions. Through the use of case studies, we’ll explore how you can encourage students to come to tutorial prepared, things to try when students aren’t prepared, how to prepare yourself to lead an engaging discussion, and tips and techniques for facilitating discussion once it’s underway.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014
2pm – 4pm
CTSI Office, Blackburn Room
Robarts Library, 4th Floor

HOW LANGUAGE AND CULTURE MAKE CLASSROOMS: IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING DIVERSE STUDENT BODIES

A part of the Teaching and Learning at U of T workshop series for TAs

ELECTIVE

Thursday, April 24, 2014
2pm-4pm

In this workshop, we will frame the issue of English language learners (ELL) by looking at how language and culture shape our experiences of educational contexts and environments. Our focus will be on opening the conversation through the sharing of our experiences as both students and educators.  We will discuss how language and culture contribute to systems of power and how they relate to systems of advantage and disadvantage that play out in classroom relationships. Through examining the experiences, challenges and successes of participants, we will discuss questions such as:

• What kinds of pedagogical challenges emerge in linguistically and culturally diverse teaching contexts at U of T?
• What sorts of values, attitudes, and skills should educators adopt in order to capitalize on such diversity and not marginalize students in the process?

UTSC WORKSHOPS

BEST PRACTICES IN FORMATIVE FEEDBACK

Nancy Johnston, Associate Director, Centre for Teaching and Learning, UTSC
Sarah King, Coordinator, The Writing Centre, UTSC

CORE

Students will take part in a series of hands-on activities interspersed with brief lectures to learn how to increase student engagement and learning through the use of effective feedback techniques. Participants will develop valuable teaching skills by learning how to efficiently assess assignments and provide forward-looking suggestions for improvement.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014
1pm – 3pm
IC318

STRENGTHENING UNDERGRADUATES RESEARCH AND WRITING SKILLS

Sarah Fedko, Information Literacy Librarian, UTSC Library
Sheryl Stevenson, Lecturer, The Writing Centre, UTSC

CORE

This workshop mixes brief presentations with hands-on activities that enable participants to (1) identify common undergraduate problems with research and writing, (2) learn current best practices and resources to address such problems, and (3) formulate strategies they would use as TAs to help students avoid or overcome a typical weakness in their research or writing.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014
12pm – 2pm
AC286a (in the UTSC Library)