1. The Graduate Teacher Training Program: Analyzing and Improving Graduate Student Teaching of Psychology Inaugural Academic Symposium at UVA: April 14, 2011

2. Motivation  Large number of graduate student TAs.  Incoming TAs often express concerns about teaching.  Training through the Teaching Resource Center and TPT  No psychology-specific training.

3. The Graduate Teacher Training Program  Overview:  A two-year program for entering psychology graduate students.  Three main objectives:  Orient students to basic practical issues related to college teaching.  Provide methods of teaching to implement directly as teaching assistants and faculty.  Help students develop teaching philosophies.

4. Orient students to basic practical issues related to college teaching:  Participants attend workshops in:  Assessment  Learning  Teaching Techniques  Participants also reflect their experiences.

6. Provide methods of teaching to implement directly as teaching assistants and faculty:  Peer Observations:  4-person groups.  Each member tapes themselves teaching twice.  Each member also provides feedback on a peer’s teaching twice.  Those being taped reflect on the experience.  Participants create a course syllabus.  Teaching Techniques workshops and talk.

8. Help students develop teaching philosophies:  Mentorship program with psychology professors from James Madison University.  Reflective Teaching Statement.  Several brainstorming workshops.  Participants share drafts with peers and their JMU mentors.

9. Evidence of Learning  Preliminary survey collected upon entrance into program.  Feedback from workshops and our Collab site.  Workshop reflections.  Peer observation reflections.  Semesterly survey.  Course evaluations from undergraduates.

10. Participants are motivated to reflect on their experiences:  Student Learning was most well-attended.  75% of attendees reflected on the experience.  This pattern is consistent across all workshops, 76% of attendees reflecting on at least one workshop.

11. First semester findings:  Participants remained positive on their feelings of:  being effective teachers, t(15) = 2.76, p <.02, one- sample.  being fair graders, t(15) = 5.65, p <.001, one-sample.  enjoying teaching, t(15) = 4.70, p <.001, one-sample.  Highest rated components:  Mentorship and Peer Observation experiences.  Concerns  Grading and creating assessment.  Future workshops to address these issues.

12. Future directions:  Second-semester survey.  Spring course evaluation data.  Data will inform program efficacy and participant development.  Findings will be presented at the Eastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, summer 2011.

13. Thank you to:  Our faculty board members: Dr. Brian Nosek, Dr. Dan Willingham, Dr. Denny Proffitt, and Dr. David Daniel  Our mentors at James Madison University: Dr. Jessica Irons, Dr. Bryan Saville, Dr. Tracy Zinn, Dr. Suzanne Baker, Dr. Kenn Barron, and Dr. Monica Reis-Bergen  The Teaching Resource Center and Tomorrow’s Professors Today: Dr. Michael Palmer, and Dr. Deandra Little