1st Edition
Preparing for College and University Teaching Competencies for Graduate and Professional Students
This book is a guide for designing professional development programs for graduate students. The teaching competencies framework presented here can serve as the intended curriculum for such programs. The book will also be an excellent resource for evaluating programs, and will be an excellent resource for academics who study graduate students.This book presents the work of the Graduate Teaching Competencies Consortium to identify, organize, and clarify the competencies that graduate students need to teach effectively when they join the professoriate. To achieve this goal, the Consortium developed a framework of 10 teaching competencies organized around three overarching questions:• What do graduate students need to achieve by the end of their graduate education to be successful teacher-scholars?• What do graduate students need to understand about higher education to have successful careers as educators?• What do graduate students need to do to be successful teachers during their graduate student careers?Although much work has been done to identify the competencies of effective teachers in higher education, only a small portion of this work has been conducted with graduate student instructors. This is an important area of research given that graduate students are critical in the higher education academic pipeline. Nationally, graduate students teach between 25% and 50% of courses offered at the undergraduate level. Graduate student teaching is also critical because during early teaching experiences teachers establish a teaching style and set of teaching skills, which will endure as graduate students enter the professoriate.It is important to develop a teaching competency framework that is specific to graduate student instructors as they often have unique needs and roles as teachers. For example, graduate student instructors are in the unique position of becoming experts in their field concurrent with learning to teach. Moreover, as many professional development programs for graduate student instructors evolve based upon factors such as available resources and perceived needs of graduate students, this framework will be a useful aid for thoughtfully designing strategic, evidence-based, comprehensive professional development opportunities and programs.
Introduction —Joanna Gilmore and Molly Hatcher 1. Overview of the Graduate and Professional Student Teaching Competencies Framework —Joanna Gilmore 2. Acquiring Disciplinary Knowledge —Michelle A. Maher and Michael T. Ashby 3. Developing Professional Identity and Dispositions —Alan Kalish and Jennifer S. Collins 4. Discovering the Possibilities. Exploring Disciplinary and Institutional Contexts for Teaching —Tershia Pinder-Grover and Audra Baleisis 5. Incorporating Professional Standards and Ethics Instruction Into Graduate Student Instruction and Future Faculty Preparation —Molly Hatcher and Linda M. von Hoene 6. Using Knowledge About How People Learn to Inform Teaching —Joanna Gilmore 7. Setting and Communicating Learning Goals and Expectations —Alan Kalish and Michael K. Murphy 8. Teaching With Attention to Diversity and Inclusion —Lauren Miller Griffith 9. Assessing Student Work to Promote Learning —Ashley Leyba and Linda M. von Hoene 10. Teaching Graduate Students to Use Discipline-Specific, Evidence-Based Practices. Terms, Practices, and Opportunities —Katherine Kearns 11. Lenses and Recommendations for Helping Graduate Students Assess and Improve Teaching in Community —Steven Hansen and Erin M. Rentschler 12. Applying the Holistic Competencies Framework —Molly Hatcher Editors and Contributors Index
Biography
Joanna Gilmore is Director of Assessment & Evaluation for Charleston County School District in South Carolina. Molly Hatcher is the Director of the Faculty Innovation Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
"Graduate students provide much of the instruction in American higher education. An enduring conundrum has been how to train them to do this work well. What should an effective graduate student instructor (GSI) know and be able to do? Preparing for College and University Teaching answers those questions by offering a detailed research-based framework of 10 teaching competencies.
The framework starts with foundational competencies such as 'acquire disciplinary expertise' and 'understand postsecondary environments' and encompasses pedagogical competencies such as 'know how people learn,' 'teach with an attention to diversity,' and 'assess their own teaching performance.' This inspiring and practical book offers one chapter for each competency: a detailed description, a research-based rationale, and examples of how to teach it.
Fortunately, the days when graduate students were thrown into the classroom with no training or support are behind us. Preparing for College and University Teaching provides a way to systematically organize courses and professional development offerings for graduate student instructors. This book will instantly become a go-to guide for those who work with GSIs and those who mentor apprentice instructors."
"Preparing for College Teaching presents ten essential competencies for graduate student professional development, each with a theoretical foundation and practical program examples. I have found this competency framework to be very useful for strategic planning at the Sheridan Center, and I envision that other Centers for Teaching and Learning will find this book to be an important guidepost for their graduate and professional student development initiatives."
Mary C. Wright, Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning; Executive Director of the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning; and Professor of Practice in Sociology
Brown University
"A framework of graduate student teaching competencies is exactly what we needed—and could not find in a single, integrated resource prior to this book—when developing our preparing future faculty program. With this volume, we now have a research-supported and actionable guide with which to justify, evaluate, and benchmark our program. Preparing for College and University Teaching will greatly benefit our preparing future faculty program—and the graduate students we serve."
Kate Williams, Ph.D., Assistant Director, TA Development and Future Faculty Initiatives, Center for Teaching and Learning
Georgia Institute of Technology
"How to prepare graduate students as effective teachers has been a topic of growing importance over the past few decades. By identifying and describing specific teaching competencies that graduate education should address, explaining an array of strategies for teaching these competencies, and providing examples from universities across the nation, Gilmore, Hatcher, and their colleagues have made a major contribution to theory and practice. The ideas offered are compelling and well-researched. This book will be of great use to graduate deans, leaders of teaching centers, and faculty advisors committed to preparing graduate students for their responsibilities as effective teachers."
Ann E. Austin, University Distinguished Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education; Associate Dean for Research, College of Education; Assistant Provost for Faculty and Academic Staff Development—Career Paths
Michigan State University
“Preparing for College and University Teaching is the culmination of decades of experiences, conversations, and ideas intended to positively improve the teaching experience of graduate student instructors (GSIs). The authors created a framework of 10 teaching competencies essential for the development of graduate students. The competencies include foundational, postsecondary, and pedagogical concepts and provide critical insight for graduate student instructors looking to uncover more about a career in academia. These competencies outline the understanding and knowledge necessary to be a successful scholar, educator, and teacher. Each chapter is organized to consistently provide a description of the competency, the rationale for the competency, and examples of how to implement or teach the competency.
Instructors of current faculty preparation programs may consider including this text in their courses to enhance the graduate student’s learning. [This book] is comprehensive, detailed, and derived from many years of relevant work and experience. As a result of its thoroughness, there is much for graduate student instructors, faculty GSI supervisors, and institutions at large to glean from their framework of the ten competencies. Preparing for College and University Teaching provides an opportunity for reflection and assessment to further develop graduate student teachers across academia.”
Journal of Faculty Development
