by Erin Raterman
Daily Lobo
A series of UNM spring semester workshops designed to help teaching assistants become better educators is underway with its second installment beginning today.
The workshops are organized by the Teaching Assistance Resource Center and funded through UNM's Department of Academic Affairs. They were started several years ago as a way to educate teaching assistants about education practices that could be used in the classroom, said Susan Deese-Roberts, director of the UNM Center for Advancement of Scholarship in Teaching and Learning.
"Being a T.A. is really overwhelming," Deese-Roberts said. "Teaching takes so much preparation and time, it is not just time spent in the classroom."
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Deese-Roberts said that the workshops were started in the 1980s and are a support program for graduate students who are faced with the challenge of transitioning to the front of the classroom.
According to its Web site, the Teaching Assistance Resource Center offers a variety of programs designed to meet the teaching and learning needs of campus teaching assistants. The center offers some workshops twice during the fall semester and once during the first six weeks of the spring semester. Those workshops are presented by members of the UNM community and address issues specific to the campus teaching assistant community.
The workshops were originally designed around the concept of improving the classroom teaching abilities of the teaching assistants, however, they are open to all UNM faculty and instructors.
Currently, 511 teaching assistants are working at UNM, according to the Office of Graduate Studies.
The position is, for many teaching assistants, their first formal opportunity to teach students and also can give them a chance to learn more about the subject that they are teaching.
Teaching assistants' continued learning can be applied to their graduate studies, Deese-Roberts said.
The workshop's presenters are two teaching assistants and two UNM faculty members with a high level of expertise in the topic of the workshop, Deese-Roberts said.
This spring's four topics will be: teaching international students, pedagogy, classroom assessments and designing better multiple-choice and essay tests.
Today's workshop will address pedagogy and development of teaching styles. Pedagogy includes the development of a teaching style that suits the lesson and works for the instructor teaching it.
For more information, contact the Teaching Assistance Resource Center at 277-3341 or the Center for Advancement of Scholarship in Teaching and Learning at 277-7924.
