3rd September 2020: PGRs who teach
Dr Andrew McKinley (University of Bristol) shared a programme he established in a previous position with a talk entitled :Quis docet ipsos doctores? Supporting trainee educators to support an excellent learning environment
“Many active learning environments require the presence of multiple facilitators to be successful, however maintaining an appropriate staff-student ratio in such learning activities with academic staff is often prohibitive. As a result, many departments make use of the graduate teaching assistant (GTA) – often graduate research students who are undertaking a level of ‘academic apprenticeship’ in that department. However, in order for these to deliver the excellent experience required appropriate training must be delivered.
We present a model for general GTA training, delivering a transferrable, professionally relevant course aligned with doctoral programme learning outcomes, with additional support for GTAs wishing to continue to gain recognition through the Higher Education Academy at D1 level (AFHEA).”
Eli Saetnan is a Senior Educational Developer at the Academy (University of Liverpool) and shared a programme specifically developed to support PGRs this coming year. (starts at 16m 50s)
“Here at the Academy, we have developed all of our training and development into fully online programmes which blend synchronous and asynchronous developmental support. Our GTA and demonstrator training is designed to support those new to teaching in a wide range of disciplines and teaching formats including those supporting practical and laboratory teaching. The programme has been recently re-developed to include good pedagogic practice online.”
The recording of the presentations is here.
Break-out Room Discussions
- PGR students in virtual teaching environments
- Building strong staff/student networks for discussing PGR teaching
- Exploring novel approaches to utilising PGR students in undergraduate teaching