Description of the GRSC 7770 Teaching Support Seminars

The Office of Instructional Support & Development (OISD) in cooperation with the Graduate School established the GRSC Teaching Support Seminar in 1984 . For many years it was taught exclusively out of OISD. In 1990 a University Policy (http://www.isd.uga.edu/teaching_assistant/ta-policy.html) was adopted requiring teaching support for any graduate student who did not have previous college level teaching experience. The GRSC courses were expanded to include sections on language development for international teaching assistants taught by the intensive English program. The goal of the GRSC 7770 expansion was to provide developmental support for international students in English for instructional purposes, an understanding of cultural norms in the North American classroom and an opportunity to interact with domestic TAs in talking about teaching approaches that are effective in teaching undergraduates. Initially the GRSC 7770 sequence of courses could provide a full academic year of graduate credit in teaching for international teaching assistants and a semester for domestic students.

Currently, the Graduate School provides the GRSC 7770 call number and up to ten partial assistantships to help departments develop a discipline specific section of GRSC. The Office of Instructional Support & Development coordinates the departmental sections and assists the faculty member and GRSC TA recipient in developing the courses and identifying resources. The GRSC 7770 call number for the language sections was changed to ELAN 7768 and ELAN 7769 when instruction was moved to Language Education several years ago. International graduate students may still take three semesters of language and teaching support seminars for graduate credit while domestic students take one semester of the GRSC 7770 class. Flexible credit of from one to three credit hours is a registration accommodation only since the course is taught as a two-hour course.

Outcomes of the GRSC 7770 Teaching Seminar

Since University policy requires instructional support for any graduate student who will have contact with undergraduates, enrollment in the GRSC 7770 seminars is regularly over 300 students each fall semester. There are approximately twenty departmental sections and several general sections taught by OISD each fall. Some departments use a departmental call number to conduct their teaching seminar so many more than 300 students are getting a semester of graduate credit and University support for their teaching. International graduate students without a TSE or SPEAK score of 50 are not supposed to have any contact with undergraduates until they have completed the language sections (ELAN 7768 & ELAN 7769) and the GRSC 7770 teaching seminars.

The policy requirement that students must receive support for their teaching has dramatically reduced the number of problems in the classroom and complaints by undergraduates. Because the TA assistant to the GRSC 7770 course must have won a teaching award and has often worked with OISD as a TA Mentor, the message communicated to new TAs is the assistantship is a valuable professional opportunity and the institution values teaching. OISD regularly gets notes of appreciation from TAs who have taken the GRSC seminar and from those who have gone on into faculty positions and are still using the strategies and materials they received in the seminars. Several former UGA teaching assistants have established GRSC 7770 type teaching seminars at other institutions.

The GRSC 7770 teaching seminar has dramatically increased the number of graduate students who are provided developmental support for their teaching. It has also changed the teaching culture in some departments as departmental faculty are involved in the seminar as teacher of record and session presenters. When the dialogue on teaching becomes public and part of the expected departmental culture everyone in the department benefits. There is a strong message that teaching is important and valued by the institution. A number of faculty claim the GRSC 7770 seminar in the department changed how they viewed teaching and even the focus of what they considered important in their faculty appointment. Graduate students benefit immensely from the positive departmental teaching culture.

Implementation of the GRSC 7770 Seminars

Departments may use the Graduate School call number, GRSC 7770 to establish their own discipline specific version of the teaching seminar. This call number has made it very easy to expand the seminars to many departments. In addition, the Graduate School 's establishment of GRSC 7770 partial assistantships provides the incentive for many departments to establish their own seminar. These are 2/9ths assistantships that the department must augment by at least 1/9 th . Quality control is maintained by only giving these assistantships to TAs who have already won teaching awards and served in leadership roles as TA Mentors, laboratory coordinators or preceptors. The department also must have a faculty member as teacher of record on the seminar who works with the TA to develop the course. The Office of Instructional Support & Development also works with the departments in identifying resources and in developing a syllabus for the seminar. A private -list discussion of all GRSC 7770 Instructors and TAs provides an easy method of sharing materials or concerns about the seminar. Once the seminar becomes part of the departmental culture it is easy to maintain by rotating new award winning TAs into the assistantship and involving all faculty in the department in some way with the course. Since the intent of the GRSC assistantship is to get a course established, in many departments faculty only teach the established course. Assistantships are usually given to departments who are just developing a course though some very large departments have gotten a GRSC assistantship for a number of years. Approximately half of the GRSC assistantships and GRSC sections involve STEM departments.