Programs Abound As Schools Make T.A. Training A Priority

Sidebar: A Trio of Innovative T.A. Training Programs Teaching assistants (T.A.'s) were once regarded as second-class citizens by science graduate students with research assistantships. But things have changed over the past decade. Several factors-including recognition of the value of teaching skills, a tight job market, and public demand for quality in undergraduate instruction-have converged to stimulate academic departments to invest more in T.A.'s. As a result, many colleges and universities now offer T.A. training programs at the institutional and departmental levels. And in some schools, competition for positions is intense. WIN-WIN: Well-trained grad students make undergraduate classes better and bolster enrollment, says Michigan’ s Constance Cook. "Increasingly, graduate students in the sciences are realizing that teaching enhances their future job prospects, especially for faculty positions. And faculty realize that putting the best graduate students in the undergraduate classrooms makes their undergraduate programs better and bolsters enrollment," says Constance E. Cook, director of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Lee McKenzie McAnally, a T.A. in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, recently accepted a teaching position at Langara College in Vancouver. She believes that her T.A. experiences in biology, geology, and paleontology helped her land the new job. "In these days, when jobs are few and applicants many, one needs to use whatever one can to get ahead," she comments. "T.A.'s who teach well and receive good evaluations should be encouraged to use the evaluations" when interviewing for jobs. But schools did not always place emphasis on T.A. training. Many institutions began developing such programs in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to science educators. Before then, a green graduate student would nervously face a labful of undergrads with little or no preparation in teaching methods. "Almost every faculty member in the sciences learned how to teach by the sink-or-swim method, just being thrown into a classroom and turned loose," states Nina Caris, director of the introductory biology program at Texas A&M University. In 1988, Caris was charged with setting up a T.A. training program for the biology department at Texas A&M. "When I first took this job, I realized that I hadn't been trained to do it!" she recalls. "I had never taken an education course-I was trained to be a scientist." With the help of the university's Center for Teaching Excellence, Caris developed a 4 1/2-day program for new T.A.'s. It includes small-group seminars on teaching methods, role-playing, practice sessions, and micro-teaching, which entails presenting parts of lab sessions to other T.A.'s and being videotaped and critiqued. Today many schools have variations on the T.A. training theme. And contrary to the stereotype of large research institutions devoting fewer resources to T.A. training than small liberal-arts colleges do, the extents of such programs follow no particular pattern. Programs vary greatly among schools, within schools, and even within departments. "There are many differences [in T.A. training] from school to school, but I do not see the differences being based on type of school," says Susan Karcher, an instructor in biological sciences at Purdue University. TEACHING THE ROPES: T.A. training programs, such as those offered at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan, are the result of public demand for increasing levels of excellence in undergraduate education. Most programs include a brief, university-wide orientation in the fall, department meetings during the semester, and sometimes a course in teaching methods. The program in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, illustrates this multilevel training. Here, laboratory teaching specialist Melissa Michael, who is in charge of two of the three undergraduate biology major laboratory courses, oversees 35 T.A.'s who teach 1,100 undergraduates each semester. "All T.A.'s are required to attend a two-day, all-campus orientation, where they are briefed on everything from 'know your university' information to the laws regarding sexual harassment," Michael explains. "T.A.'s from the School of Life Sciences are then given separate sessions on topics related to teaching laboratory classes, discussion sessions, and safety issues. Finally, the T.A.'s assigned to my classes are given several intensive training sessions on course policies, classroom-management issues, and theoretical and applied biology that they will be teaching in the laboratory and the classrooms." CONTINUING T.A. TRAINING: Purdue course instructor Susan Karcher, second from right, discusses the details of Drosophila mutants with teaching assistants for a genetics and molecular biology laboratory course. Many schools report that science T.A.'s are taking advantage of general training programs. "We have a graduate credit course in university teaching that is popular. We can never accommodate all those who want to take it," says Sergio Piccinin, director of the Center for University Teaching at the University of Ottawa. Adds Judith Reagan, assistant director of the University of Virginia's Teaching Resource Center, "Attendance [at teaching workshops] by T.A.'s in the sciences has been increasing." A typical T.A. workload is 20 hours a week, which often translates into two 3-hour labs, several discussion sections, office hours, and time for preparation and grading. Compensation generally includes tuition and fee waivers and a stipend or salary, which ranges from $8,000 to $13,000 a year, not counting summer teaching. Some schools recognize T.A. excellence. The University of Cincinnati gives an annual $1,000 award to an outstanding T.A. campuswide, and Purdue awards departmental honors for excellence in teaching. Awards, and evaluations in general, are based largely on questionnaires that students complete, and sometimes on observation by faculty. At the University of Michigan, a representative from the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching meets with classes in mid-semester to discuss their T.A.'s, who are not present at the meetings. Based on the students' comments, the representative then advises the T.A. on how to improve. However, student evaluations require interpretation, some instructors say. "Often students will criticize T.A.'s for things that I consider a strength," comments Michael. For example, she notes that "criticisms" like "He always makes us stay for the entire lab period," or "She won't answer our questions, but always just keeps asking us questions instead!" actually point up positive qualities of a teacher. HIGH DEMAND: Students are taking general teaching classes in droves, notes Sergio Piccinin, director of the Center for University Teaching at the University of Ottawa. Many T.A. training programs attempt to head off two common problems-language barriers and stage fright. Graduate students from different countries sometimes have difficulty communicating in English with their students. To prevent this problem, most universities require T.A.'s to pass a speaking proficiency exam before facing a class. Those with persistent communication problems usually receive further training. However, it is often up to individual faculty members to solve a language problem. In one institution, an instructor in general biology prevents the problem by assigning T.A.'s who are difficult to understand to teach graduate-level courses only. Yet an instructor in plant biology at the same school transfers undergraduates to other sections of the course if they can't understand a T.A. To help a T.A. overcome a fear of public speaking, many training programs hold mock teaching sessions. These may take place before a semester begins or during the semester. "Some people are extremely shy and reclusive in nature, and are petrified of standing in front of a group of undergraduates," says Timothy Watkins, a T.A. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine, who trains other T.A.'s. Increased interest in T.A. training is part of a national trend to bolster science education in general, educators report. "I think we as a society are looking at science teaching at all levels more closely," says Karcher. "Questions are raised, such as why do U.S. children not score as well on standardized tests in math and science as do children from other countries?" Karcher mentions a 1994 statewide study by the Commission for Higher Education in Indiana that criticized the quality of science teaching at research universities such as Purdue and Indiana University. The report, she says, has galvanized efforts at many schools to improve teaching skills of professors and T.A.'s. Cook agrees that consumers are demanding better quality in life science education. "The public has made it very clear to research universities that our undergraduate education programs had better be excellent. We have gotten that message loud and clear, and we are making lots of curricular improvements, plus improving pedagogical training for all instructors, including T.A.'s. As grant money in the sciences continues to decline in the future, I think the pendulum will swing back more and more to better focus on teaching in addition to research." The Principal Investigator Program, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine: At Bates college, the laboratory component of four core life science courses is conducted in the manner of a real research lab. Instead of cookbook-like instructions, students design experiments. In lieu of seeking answers to age-old lab exercise questions in fraternity house archives, students hand in formal write-ups as if they were principal investigators (P.I.'s) submitting the work to a journal. But writing a journal article requires very specific organizational and literary skills. The popular P.I. program uses a special breed of undergraduate teaching assistant (T.A.), who begins as a sophomore and is called a TWA, for "technical writing assistant." Other undergraduate T.A.'s assist with non-writing aspects of courses. "We needed the additional assistance of the TWAs to handle many of the nitty-gritty writing questions that come up when students are first confronted with the task of journal-style writing," says Joseph Pelliccia, a biology professor at Bates and program director in the division of undergraduate education at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va. Pelliccia began the P.I. program with lead lab instructor Greg Anderson of Bates in 1991. FOCUS ON WOMEN: Physicist Lynne Orr’s program trains female undergraduates as T.A.’s for physics courses at Rochester. Teaching Traineeships for Undergraduate Women at the University of Rochester: Assistant professor of physics Lynne Orr and senior lecturer Priscilla Auchincloss have merged a new National Science Foundation program with an existing T.A. training program to identify promising female undergraduates and prepare them to assist in physics courses. The T.A.'s, some of whom are actually biology majors, stay an extra week after the spring semester to learn the labs they will teach in the fall. Come September, they train the graduate student T.A.'s to do the labs. "The idea is to recruit undergraduate women from the sciences who have already taken physics courses and performed well and place one in each introductory lab along with the regular T.A.," Orr explains. "Since every science and engineering major at Rochester is required to take physics, that means that they all have at least one female physics instructor, which is at least one more than I ever had!" Eighteen young women are participating this year, and in the future young men will be included, according to Orr. T.A. Consultants at the University of California, Irvine: Timothy Watkins describes himself as "passionate about teaching and about the importance of science education in today's society." A graduate student at UC-Irvine, Watkins designs and implements T.A. training programs in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology. As one of several "T.A. consultants," or TACs, he conducts a two-day orientation for new T.A.'s each year, attends a weekly graduate seminar on "Teaching Methods in Biology" and holds T.A. workshops all year long for several departments. "The TAC program offers a unique and extremely valuable opportunity to continue one's pedagogical development, but only a few of us go that route," he says. After earning his Ph.D., Watkins hopes to teach at a small college that focuses on learning. -R.L. Ricki Lewis, a freelance science writer based in Scotia, N.Y., is the author of several biology textbooks. She is online at 76715.3517@compuserve.com.

Programs Abound As Schools Make T.A. Training A Priority

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