1. Developing Your Teaching Skills in Grad School
CENTRE FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE
Cathy Wang
TA Workshop Facilitator

2. Outline How to get the most of your teaching experiences as a TA
How to improve your teaching and presentation skills (teaching development programs at UW)

3. The Benefits of Teaching as a Grad Student
Best way to know a topic: teach it to someone else
Professional development
marking = constructive feedback
tutorials/labs = presentation skills, explaining complex ideas
office hours = communication skills
Excellent way to learn about teaching & grading
TA ships not just a funding source, help building a solid back ground
Professional development
Good experience especially for future career in academia and the busness world.

4. Getting the Most out of Your Teaching Experience

5. Things you can do Diversify your TA experience
(different courses, different profs)
Get feedback on your teaching
Students
Course instructor
CTE
Offer to give guest lectures
Keep track of TA awards/nominations
Complete teaching certificate programs or workshops
Ask around about the TA evaluations. Self-administered evaluations (if your department does not have a form… teaching tips link)

6. Teaching development opportunities at UWaterloo
Centre for Teaching Excellence

7. Teaching development opportunities
Centre for Teaching Excellence
We offer programs geared towards graduate students:
Level 1: Fundamentals of University Teaching (FUT)
Level 2: Certificate in University Teaching (CUT)
CUT is only open to PhD students, and has FUT as a prerequisite
CTE Website: “Teaching Tips”; CTE Blog; TA Manual

8. Teaching development workshops
Classroom Delivery Skills
Lesson Planning
Teaching Methods
Effective Questions
Grading Student Papers
Teaching with Confidence
Teaching Philosophy Statements
and many more!

9. Teaching development opportunities
Fundamentals of University Teaching
Masters/PhD
Between 1-3 terms to complete
New “block” option (2 weeks)
Six teaching-related workshops
Three practice teaching
sessions (‘microteaching’)
Explain MTS and why they are helpful

10. Teaching development opportunities
Fundamentals of University Teaching
Benefits:
Appears on your transcript
Printed certificate
Feedback on teaching (x3)
Improved teaching & presentation skills
Confidence ✔

11. How do I sign up? cte.uwaterloo.ca “Graduate Students”
“Fundamentals of University Teaching”
Scroll down – “online registration form”

12. Quotes from Grad Students
“I've gained so much confidence from completing the program because I've been introduced to so many resources on lesson planning, teaching, presenting and more..” 
“I really enjoyed this program. Everyone was very positive and encouraging. It made me re-consider looking into teaching as a future career. Thanks for everything!” 
“Going through the process of preparing several lessons and then hearing directly from the participants and facilitators how effectively the lesson went was invaluable. This has helped me with potential future teaching, but also generally with presenting and communicating in front of groups.”

13. To conclude
By taking advantage of teaching opportunities and training programs, you will:
Improve your presentation and communication skills
Get formal teaching credentials (certificates, transcript notation)
Get an edge in the job market – teaching is a transferable skill!

14. Resources Cathy Wang TA Workshop Facilitator cathy.wang@uwaterloo.ca
cte.uwaterloo.ca
Teaching Assistant Manual
Teaching Tips
CTE Blog
@uwcte
Click on “Graduate Students” to find out more about our programs
-can find TA Manual on the right-hand side of that page: contains “TA Checklist”, policies, tips for teaching and marking

15. Questions?
We’re here to help! cte.uwaterloo.ca