January 2020 TA Institute Themes

The TA Institute runs Jan. 13–16 at UBC’s Vancouver campus and is open to any graduate student who is interested in teaching or TAing. The institute is also open to undergraduate TAs. This year, workshops in the TA institute are organized into 5 themes, and if you complete 3 workshops in a theme, and do the related pre- & post-session online modules, you are eligible for a letter of completion that you can include in your Teaching Portfolio and CV. These letters will include a brief description of any themes that you completed, and how the work you did in those themes supports your development as a teacher.

INCLUSIVE, STUDENT-CENTERED LEARNING

Even in the sciences?: Bringing an equity, diversity, and inclusion lens to multiple learning environments as a UBC teaching assistant
Power, Consent, and Safety: Preventing and Responding to Sexualized Violence
Designing High-Impact Learning Experiences
Student Engagement in Large Classrooms
Creating spaces of belonging in academia

It might be difficult to remember that each and every classroom is packed full of diverse learners with diverse needs. All too often, instructors plan their lessons thinking about their own needs in mind. Rather than approaching teaching with a teacher-centric view, we encourage participants of these sessions to approach teaching with a student-centric view. In your unique position as a TA, bridging the gap between students and instructors, you have a real opportunity to influence how students can learn best. These sessions will emphasize how both instructors and TAs can move towards a more inclusive and student-centered teaching practice that considers the needs of all learners so that all students can learn most effectively.

Pre-session form

2020 TA Institute: Inclusive, Student Centered Learning

Pre-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Identify what you as an instructor do either consciously or subconsciously to enhance student motivation
- Reflect on the role and responsibility of an educator in motivating learners
Respond:
List 3-5 considerations that might impact student motivation.
Given these considerations, what steps do you take in your lesson planning or in your TA duties to address these concerns?
What assumptions might you be making about your students when answering the above questions?

Post-session form

2020 TA Institute: Inclusive, Student Centered Learning

Post-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Reflect on your new knowledge about creating an inclusive and student-centered approach to learning and evaluate its importance
- Describe new methods and techniques that you can use in your teaching to contribute to an inclusive and student-centered classroom
Respond:
List 3-5 ways that you will actively plan to meet the needs of all learners in your teaching and/or TA duties.
How do you think a student-centered approach to learning impacts both the instructor and the learner?
How can you as a TA support your students in difficult situations? Who can you contact and where can you go if you need support?

TEACHING CAREER PREPARATIONS

Power, Consent, and Safety: Preventing and Responding to Sexualized Violence
Supporting Student Awareness of Learning: Using Metacognition as a Tool in Teaching
Introduction to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Developing Your Teaching Portfolio and Philosophy

During your TAship and other teaching experiences, you have gained valuable and transferable skills that will prepare you for a career in teaching. The best educators are continually questioning not only how they can improve their teaching, but also how they can improve their students’ learning experiences. More importantly though, your TA positions and teaching experiences have influenced what you value in teaching. Do you know what is important to you in teaching? How can you pursue these questions and inquiries? These sessions will guide you through this reflection process and help you to identify how your experiences will impact your future teaching practices and values.

Pre-session form

2020 TA Institute: Teaching Career Preparations

Pre-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Reflect on your previous teaching experiences to identify your goals and values as an educator
- Question what you would like to learn about the scholarship of teaching and learning
Respond:
What are your goals for you as a teacher and for your students as learners? What do you need to do to meet these goals?
What have you learned from your TA experiences that will benefit you as a future teacher?
What questions do you have about how to best teach and how to best learn?

Post-session form

2020 TA Institute: Teaching Career Preparations

Post-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Describe new strategies that you can use and new experiences that you can pursue to continually improve your teaching practice
- Reflect on your previous teaching experiences and use your new knowledge to identify your goals and values as an educator
Respond:
What will you do to continue to reflect on and improve your teaching practice? List 1-2 ways you can make it part of your daily routine.
What other experiences do you wish to pursue that will further prepare you for a teaching career?
What evidence of your teaching and what evidence of your student learning will you collect to build your teaching portfolio?

TEACHING FUNDAMENTALS

Leading discussions with students… When should I? How should I?
Student Engagement in Large Classrooms
Supporting Community Engaged Learning Course Assessment
Engaging Learners with Technology: Educating in the Digital Era

When we think about teaching, it is of course important to consider what we teach. However, it is arguably just as important to consider how we teach. There is a shift in higher education to implement more participatory learning strategies in teaching, but how do we do this in a class of 300 students, for example? How do we plan our lessons and learning activities in such a way that student learning is most effective? In these sessions, you will learn a wide variety of new teaching tools and techniques, how the inclusion of these approaches may impact your students’ learning, and how to plan and implement these strategies in your teaching and/or TA roles. These sessions are not only useful to new TAs and those new to teaching, but also to returning TAs and those with teaching experience.

Pre-session form

2020 TA Institute: Teaching Fundamentals

Pre-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Reflect on your known teaching strategies that you use to ensure effective teaching
- Describe your reasoning for your teaching decisions
Respond:
How do you think students learn best? Why do you believe that?
List your top “go-to” teaching strategies that you use to encourage student learning in your teaching or TA duties. Why do you default to these strategies?
How do you think students are best evaluated? How do you do this in your teaching?

Post-session form

2020 TA Institute: Teaching Fundamentals

Post-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Reflect on your known teaching strategies that you use to ensure effective teaching and consider new strategies to improve your teaching
- Describe the impact of active learning on student learning
Respond:
List 1-3 teaching strategies that you would like to incorporate into your teaching and/or TA duties.
How will implementing these strategies impact you as a teacher and how will they impact your students?
What is the value of active learning in the classroom?

TRANSFORMATIVE GROWTH IN LEARNING

TA’ing a Community Engaged Learning course: exploring the roles, tension points and opportunities for professional development
Supporting Student Awareness of Learning: Using Metacognition as a Tool in Teaching
Supporting Community Engaged Learning Course Assessment
Engaging Learners with Technology: Educating in the Digital Era

How do you think higher education has changed over the years? How do you think it will continue to change in the future? More and more, educators are developing creative and innovative approaches to teaching that you may encounter in your TA positions or may wish to pursue in your own teaching practice. This includes technology-based learning, outreach and engagement-based learning, experiential learning, and many other practices. These sessions will encourage you to think about your current approaches to teaching and learning and may introduce new paths that you’ve not yet considered. Additionally, these sessions will encourage you to encourage your students to think about teaching and learning.

Pre-session form

2020 TA Institute: Transformative Growth in Learning

Pre-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Reflect on your own teaching and learning experiences and identify your impressions of the current educational paradigm
- Describe your teaching techniques to encourage your learners to think about their own learning
Respond:
Describe your image of a typical classroom in higher education.
How do you think teaching and learning needs to change the most in higher education? Why?
How do you encourage learners to reflect on and assess their learning?

Post-session form

2020 TA Institute: Transformative Growth in Learning

Post-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Reflect on your knowledge and describe your values and goals for the future of higher education, highlighting any ways that it has changed recently
- Describe the steps you will take to implement your new view of teaching
Respond:
Based on what you’ve learned, describe your new ideal view of a typical classroom in higher education. How is this different from your image of a typical classroom that you described before these workshops?
What new practices will you implement in your teaching and/or TA duties to make your new image of a typical classroom a reality?
How will learners be impacted by these changes?

INTERDISCIPLINARY AND EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Leading discussions with students… When should I? How should I?
TA’ing a Community Engaged Learning course: exploring the roles, tension points and opportunities for professional development
Designing High-Impact Learning Experiences
Introduction to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

When we encounter challenges, we may reach out to our friends and peers for a fresh perspective and support. To address the challenge, we may run through options and scenarios together as we find a solution. Why is it that sharing perspectives and experiences is so useful to us? The fact is, we learn best through experience and reflecting on those experiences, in turn. Additionally, approaching learning from a wide variety of perspectives and disciplines impacts learning in a way that promotes deeper learning. These sessions will explore why and how you can adopt interdisciplinary and experiential learning practices in your own teaching and TA duties to promote a higher level of learning for your students.

Pre-session form

2020 TA Institute: Interdisciplinary and Experiential Learning

Pre-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Brainstorm how interdisciplinary and experiential approaches to teaching and learning might benefit students in your discipline
Respond:
What do you think is valuable about an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning?
Consider a learning experience you have had, such as learning to ride a bike, learning to drive a car, or learning to cook your favourite food. How would you best approach teaching this technique to someone else? Why do you think your approach would be the best way to teach it?
Describe a challenge that learners in your teaching/TA discipline may face. How can you approach this problem using interdisciplinary and experiential learning practices?

Post-session form

2020 TA Institute: Interdisciplinary and Experiential Learning

Post-session Work

Name*
Please include your name if you would like to receive credit for completing this theme.
First Last
Email*
Please provide an email address to receive a copy of your responses.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Using your new knowledge, re-evaluate how interdisciplinary and experiential approaches to teaching and learning might benefit students
- Describe the steps you will take as an instructor to engage yourself and your students in interdisciplinary and experiential learning
Respond:
What impact does interdisciplinary and experiential learning have on the instructor and on the learner?
List 2-3 new strategies that you would like to adopt in your teaching and/or TA duties to increase interdisciplinary and experiential learning.
What will you do as an instructor to further learn how to engage your students in these teaching methods?