CETL’s Graduate Student Professional Development Program (GSPD)

Graduate Student Teaching Support and Services

I. GRAD 9001: College and University Teaching 

One-credit hour, online, eleven-week session (eight-week summer session)

Catalog Description: This course introduces students to effective pedagogical skills and is designed to prepare Graduate Teaching Assistants for their duties. Topics include understanding how students learn, creating active learning environments, using formative and summative assessments, grading, handling problematic student behavior, responding to student diversity, learning classroom observation strategies, and creating teaching philosophies. 

II. Graduate Student Teaching Workshop/Webinar Series:

In addition to CETL’s workshop offerings, CETL’s GSPD offers five to seven workshops and webinars every fall and spring for graduate students who are currently teaching or who are interested in teaching. The workshops address core competences for university teaching across disciplines. For example, research-based topics include: 1) improving lab instruction; 2) how to create more interactive lectures; 3) creating an inclusive classroom; 4) classroom management; 5) writing a teaching philosophy, and more.

III. Teaching Consultations, Observations, Focus Groups (SGIDs):

• Discussion of any teaching concerns you might have.
• Provide feedback for your teaching philosophy or academic job search teaching demo.
• Classroom observations. We are available to sit in your course (or review your online course), observe and collect data on individual behaviors (yours and your students), offer our observations back to you as feedback, brainstorm possible solutions to any issues uncovered, and document the whole process in a written memo.
• Student evaluation consultation. We can help you construct useful mid-semester evaluations to target the issues that interest you, interpret the data collected (both midterm and official end-of-semester), and brainstorm possible responses to enhance your course.
• Focus groups with students (SGIDs) Sometimes it helps to speak directly with the students to ask follow-up questions and clarify issues. CETL staff can act as neutral third parties who can collect anonymous feedback and report it back to you.

IV. Custom Workshops/Webinars:

We offer custom workshops--classroom, single-event, or full-day--to meet your specific program instructional needs. For example, your graduate students may need professional development about student learning, metacognition, motivation, teaching online, developing course materials, and more. We will work with you to design professional development opportunities for your graduate students to improve teaching and to meet your program goals.

For additional information or questions, please contact Linda Stewart, CETL Assistant Director for Graduate Student Support at 470-578-6410 or email: lstewar2@kennesaw.edu

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS/COC) Credential guidelines: Standard 6.2.a.f. -- Graduate teaching assistants: master’s in the teaching discipline or 18 graduate semester hours in the teaching discipline, direct supervision by a faculty member experienced in the teaching discipline, regular in-service training, and planned and periodic evaluation.

 

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