Teaching Assistant Professional Development Days

Nasim Tavassoli, Educational Developer (Student Development) 

In this information session, you will learn about different programs (e.g., Micro-teaching short course, the teaching dossier retreat, CNLT 5000 course, CUTL certificate program, etc.) available at CLT to help you develop and improve your teaching skills.

Location

Room 303

Type of session

Information session

Intended audience

New TAs

Elizabeth Gillis, Senior Educational Developer (Curriculum)

You are excited to engage with students in the classroom and as you look out you are greeted with empty stares and silence. Come join this interactive session where we discuss how to use active learning techniques to support student learning, explore the role of motivation in the classroom, and identify one tangible technique you can implement as a teaching assistant to increase student engagement. As this workshop is for experienced teaching assistants, we will be crowdsourcing ideas on what worked in the past.

Location

Council Chambers, 2^nd floor

Type of session

Workshop

Intended audience

Experienced TAs

Janice MacDonald Eddington, Writing Advisor at the Writing Centre 

Efficient feedback strategies TAs can use to help students improve the expression of their ideas, learn the conventions and expectations of their discipline, and empower them in their future academic work, while effectively managing the time devoted to commenting on each paper. This session will also include strategies for helping students with academic integrity concerns in their writing.

Location

Room 303

Type of session

Workshop

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Daniella Sieukaran, Senior Educational Developer (Curriculum)

Have you ever had Argumentative Alex, Chatty Charlie, or Disruptive Drew throw a wrench in your carefully prepared lesson plan? Learn how to proactively and effectively manage challenging student behaviour and other unplanned factors in the classroom, which in turn nurtures an environment conducive to student learning. In this in-person workshop, you will:

• Learn the goals and impacts of classroom management.
• Identify your own classroom management style and how it influences your teaching.
• Be introduced to the F-R Framework – Friendliness, Firmness, and Fairness – and supporting “R” strategies to help you manage unexpected, challenging, and disruptive situations in the classroom.
• Apply classroom management strategies to a case study through group discussion.

Type of session

Workshop

Location

Council Chambers, 2^nd floor

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Rachelle McKay, Educational Developer, Indigenous Knowledges and Ways of Knowing
Shazia Nawaz Awan, Educational Developer, Internationalization & Intercultural Competency
Tereigh Ewert, Senior Educational Developer, Anti Oppressive & Transformative Education

In this interactive session, TAs will explore how identity and self-learning can be a starting point to understanding their students’ learning experiences, attitudes, and behaviors. Together with the facilitators and with each other, TAs will work on how their assumptions and expectations of students can impact classroom climate.

Location

Room 303

Type of session

Workshop 

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Gillian Gass, University Teaching Fellow, Department of Biology

It’s not unusual to feel shy about teaching, or to feel like being a shy person stands in the way of teaching – but take heart! Some of us who teach (and teach well!) are indeed shy in various ways, and in this workshop we’ll explore some aspects of shyness in teaching that are especially relevant to TAing. We won’t approach shyness as something that needs to be ‘fixed’; instead, we’ll use it to help us examine some of our ideas about teaching, learning, and how we understand and motivate ourselves as educators.

Location

Council Chambers, 2^nd floor

Type of session

Workshop

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Vanessa Lent, PhD, International Student Writing Advisor 

This workshop is designed for international or multilingual graduate students who are TAs for undergraduate courses at Dalhousie. We will begin this workshop by discussing academic culture within Canadian universities in general. What are expectations of TAs within this educational space? We will then shift to discussing common challenges faced by international or multilingual TAs. These include: expectations and conventions for delivering feedback; expectations and conventions for student-centered and inclusive classroom management; expectations and conventions for communication with students and professors; and, finally, understanding the resources that are there for student TAs when they need extra support in their classes.

Outcomes

At the end of this workshop participants will:

1. Comprehend elements of academic culture within Canadian universities that impact their roles at TAs within undergraduate classrooms.
2. Understand how to deliver meaningful feedback and how to communicate effectively with students, peers, and instructors.
3. Take away key strategies for ensuring they foster inclusive and student-centred classroom environments.

Location

Room 303

Type of session

Workshop

Intended audience

International TAs

Leila Mohammadi, PhD Candidate, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Tyler Saunders, PhD Candidate, Department of Chemistry
Daniel Godfrey, Lecturer & PhD Student, Psychology & Neuroscience (Experimental)

Teaching assistantship can entail various roles and responsibilities, depending on the discipline. Some roles and responsibilities are common across different programs, while others are more discipline-specific. As TAs take on tasks such as coordinating labs, conducting office hours and tutorials, assisting students with assignments, and delivering lectures, their responsibilities become more complex. In this shared practice session, TAs from different programs, such as Mathematics, Chemistry, and Psychology, will discuss how their TAships are structured and what is expected of them in their departments. They will share their experiences, providing insights into their teaching routines, preparation for labs, tutorials, and lectures, and the challenges they face and how they overcome them. This session will also include tips and strategies to help you prepare for your own TA position. Regardless of your position or discipline, the insights shared in this session will be applicable across lots of different positions. By learning from experienced TAs, you'll gain valuable knowledge that can enhance your effectiveness and confidence in your role.

Location

Council Chambers, 2^nd floor

Type of session

Shared practice session

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Michelle McDonald, Instructional Support Technician and Trainer

This workshop will introduce attendees to the Brightspace interface. We will look at system navigation, course homepages and the content tool. Each participant will have their own sandbox and will be able to add an announcement in the News widget and explore other widgets that can be added to the Homepage. Participants will also work inside the Content Tool to be able to add modules to the Table of Contents, add content and manage modules. Participants will be able to build a basic course at the end of this workshop.

Location

Online

Type of session

Webinar

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Grace McNutt, PhD Candidate, Department of History

As students, we work everyday at improving our hard skills – skills that demonstrate our technical or administrative competence in our chosen fields. But what if I told you that our success as instructors/TAs is just as dependent on our soft skills, something we often spend a lot less time intentionally cultivating? Soft skills is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of skills: from time management and leadership traits, to communication and empathy. In this workshop, Grace McNutt will guide you through improving your soft skills with the goal of becoming a better TA. Based on her experience at the Student Success Center, this workshop is not only informed by her time as an instructor but also informed the common complaints students have about their instructors and how we as TAs can proactively and productively learn from those complaints, while still instilling in our students that their success is ultimately theirs to control. At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to design a course that emphasizes time management, better communicate and empathize with students while maintaining firm boundaries, and better understand where student complaints come from and how to address them.

Location

Online

Type of session

Workshop

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Les T. Johnson, Senior Educational Developer (Online Pedagogies)

Assistive technologies such as screen readers and speech-to-text software can help remove barriers for students who use them. In this workshop, we will introduce assistive technologies—what they are, how they work, and how you can help create learning environments compatible with these tools. The workshop will include a demonstration of some of the most popular assistive technologies used by students, including the accessibility features built into Dal’s instructional technologies (e.g., Brightspace, Microsoft Office apps, etc.).

Location

Online

Type of session

Workshop

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs

Nasim Tavassoli, Educational Developer (Student Development)

During your time as a student, you may have received mentorship from an instructor or supervisor that helped you in your own learning. Mentorship can also be a key component of your role in graduate school and TAing, offering the opportunity to guide and supervise undergraduate students and volunteers in their studies or research. While mentoring aligns with our broader teaching philosophy and values, working one-on-one with students allows us to foster individual growth and build meaningful relationships. In this workshop, we will explore the pivotal role mentors play in their students' lives and focus on developing essential mentorship skills. Topics will include clear communication and active listening, setting achievable goals and reasonable expectations, providing constructive feedback, relationship management, and setting boundaries. Participants will leave the session with a personalized mentorship action plan that outlines their values, goals, and approaches for effective mentorship. Join us to enhance your mentoring abilities and make a lasting impact on your mentees.

Location

Online

Type of session

Workshop

Intended audience

New and/or Experienced TAs