Teaching Assistants’ Training Program

The Teaching Assistants’ Training Program (TATP) is a leader in teaching development programming for graduate students at U of T. Through workshops, online resources, large scale events, and individual consultations, the TATP provides support for teaching assistants and graduate students at all stages of their teaching development. The TATP staff and their team of senior graduate student trainers and coordinators develop resources, lead training sessions and job training days, and design and facilitate teaching development workshops on all three campuses. The TATP connects with graduate students and teaching assistants, instructors, and staff across the University, reinforcing existing collaborations and building new partnerships.

See Appendix A for TATP metrics and data.

PROGRAMMING AND RESOURCES

On March 9, 2018, the TATP held a Course Design Day, the first in a new series of day-long events on special topics. Led by TATP’s Course Instructor Coordinator and TATP staff, the event was modeled on CTSI’s successful Course Design/Redesign Institute, and was an important initiative in meeting the needs of U of T’s graduate student Course Instructors. The day was broken into two parts – Fundamentals of Course Design: From Outcomes to Assessments, and Crafting Better Classroom Experiences for Your Students – allowing participants to register for both or individual sessions depending on their needs and availability. With high attendance numbers and positive feedback from participants, the successful event will be run again in 2019 with new areas of focus.

Over this past year, TATP staff have developed a number of resources, including the newly designed Graduate Student Course Instructor Resources section of the TATP website. While written with the U of T audience in mind, these resources are readily available to any graduate student or TA looking for support and ideas when designing a course or assignment. The Course Design Guide, Innovative Pedagogical Approaches to Access and Mental Health Guide, the Mini-Assessment Writing Guide, and the TATP Creative Teaching Videos as are also available on the CTSI website – updated with University of Toronto faculty-specific information and resources.

MODULE DEVELOPMENT

NEW TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES FOR TAS
The TATP, working with the ACT and Communications teams at CTSI, continue to work on a series of one-hour online training modules to provide an alternative format to in-person training for First Contract teaching assistants. Two modules – Policies and Procedures for Teaching Assistants at the University of Toronto and Skill Development: Supporting Student Writing – are complete, have been piloted, and will launch in Fall 2018. Six others are in various stages of production – from research, to storyboarding, to design and building – and will launch in the 2018-2019 academic year.

Kris Kim
Learning Strategies Specialist, Academic Success, Recipient of 2015 TA Teaching Excellence Award and former TATP Trainer
“I was lucky to have had the chance to continue working with Mike Kasprzak this past semester as an Online Instructional Designer to storyboard online training modules for TAs. The TATP is so diverse (in both team members and projects) that there’s an exciting collaborative learning opportunity around every corner. These experiences [with the TATP] have also opened my eyes to a world of possible careers where I get to collaborate with and support staff, faculty, and students in a higher education environment.”

INTERSECTIONS

The TATP works with departments, Faculties and teaching centres across the University’s three campuses to provide institution-wide TA Training. With their campus partners, the TATP is preparing for the increase in mandatory First Contract training hours from 3 hours to 4 hours beginning in Spring 2018, and to revise and adapt job training days and tutorial training workshops, and the Tri-Campus TA Day for new and returning TAs.

The TATP maintains numerous partnerships across the University and regularly collaborates with offices, communities and divisions, including UTSC’s Centre for Teaching and Learning and UTM’s Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre, on a number of initiatives.

For Student Life, the TATP’s guide on mental health was adapted as a framework for a new faculty training website and resources, and TATP staff members served as reviewers of the new content.

The TATP and the School of Graduate Studies through the Graduate Professional Skills Program have a close partnership, sharing resources, providing guidance on projects and programming, and ensuring that U of T graduate students have access to a wide range of professional and teaching development opportunities.