Friday, August 29, 12:00pm - 1:00pm - Webinar

Having a successful, positive experience during a graduate teaching assistantship is a shared responsibility, including both the faculty member supervisor and the graduate teaching assistant (GTA). While the faculty member/supervisor takes primary responsibility for guidance through the requirements of GTA’s role, the GTA also needs to be pro-active and involved.

Supervision can take many forms, depending on the faculty member’s personal supervision style, the GTA’s academic and personal needs, the standards of the discipline, and more. Regardless of style, both the supervisor and GTA should follow key guidelines of good supervisory implementation and practice. On the part of the GTA, this includes good communication with your supervisor, cooperative participation in the process, developing with your supervisor realistic timelines and expectations for your role, and handling any unanticipated or emerging problems with respect, understanding, and integrity.

Join this webinar to learn the recommended guidelines and best practices including how to ensure effective and respectful communication and how to navigate problematic situations. Be proactive so that you ensure your graduate teaching assistantship is positive, successful, and provides you with a professional development opportunity that benefits you in all aspects of your graduate career.  Register

Friday, September 29, 12:00pm - 1:00pm - Webinar

A common concern of many new instructors and teaching assistants regards the level of appropriate interaction that is considered acceptable with respect to the instructor-student relationship (“boundary dilemmas”, Aultman et al. 2009). Boundary dilemmas can arise in aspects of communication, power dynamics, physical contact, relationships, and others.

How can these dilemmas arise, and what can you do to prevent or alleviate the situation? How do you maintain a professional boundary while still being viewed by your students as helpful and accessible? What is considered an inappropriate interaction? These questions and more will be discussed in this scenario-based workshop, in which participants will review situations and then discuss the appropriate professional responses to these scenarios. Register

Thursday, October 16, 11:40am - 12:55pm - Webinar

Graduate students must handle a myriad of responsibilities during the span of their graduate studies (e.g., teaching, research, coursework, etc.). Meeting the high expectations of these academic demands is challenging at best, and for many, stressful, overwhelming, and guilt-inducing due to the competing demands of their professional and personal life. How to balance and find time for each of these facets is not a skill that graduate students automatically know! Learning how to realistically define both short-term tasks and long-term goals and how to prioritize are key to beginning to find your balance.

This workshop will help you learn to recognize different levels of stressors in your life by interactively applying the Covey Time Management Matrix and other reflective-thinking tools to your own situation. Advice for managing your workload, prioritizing your responsibilities, and identifying personal traits and time-sinks that may be contributing to this imbalance will be given, and discussion with other participants will be encouraged to help you begin to gain perspective on your graduate school experience. Register

Friday, October 31, 11:45am - 1:10pm - Webinar

A teaching philosophy statement provides a concise description of an instructor’s teaching approach, methods, and experience. Colleges and universities request a teaching philosophy statement from applicants for faculty positions, and some higher education institutions require one as part of the tenure and promotion consideration process.

What is your teaching philosophy? What should you write or include? What if you have limited teaching experience? This webinar will help you articulate your teaching philosophy in a concise, effective essay. We will discuss the statement’s purpose, different aspects of your teaching experiences that can be included, and best practices and strategies for composing the statement.

NOTE: This is a working webinar, requiring that you do some reflective writing in advance, so that the webinar itself can include individual writing, group discussion, and feedback. Participants will leave with an outline of their statement, written components, and guidance to continue crafting it. Register