Psychology 590 - Seminar on the Teaching of Psychology

The Program (Check here for the program schedule)

With the support of UCSB Instructional Development, a new TA training program was developed within the Department of Psychology in 1990-91. The 2007-2008 academic year represents the eighteenth year of implementation of the program, which has been continually supported both by the Psychology Department and Instructional Development.

The People

The TA training program is conducted by the Faculty Coordinator and a four-member Teaching Assistant Advisory Panel. Dr. Mary Hegarty serves as the Faculty Coordinator for the program. The TAAP consists of graduate students representing various departmental areas and class levels. The Lead TA for this year is Debbie ko from the Social area. Additional members of the TAAP, also from the Social area, are Joel Thurston, Lisa Jaremka and Thai Chu.

The Training Series

The 2007-2008 TA training program will include a full-day pre-Fall TA Orientation and eight sessions distributed over the Fall, Winter, and Spring Quarters. The three-quarter Seminar on Teaching of Psychology (PSY 590A-B-C) is required of all 1st-year graduate students. The sessions include a mix of active hands-on participation, lectures, and discussions on a variety of relevant topics.

Feedback

At the end of each training session, participants complete written evaluations of the quality of the session and suggest possible improvements. A cumulative evaluation is also conducted at the end of the year. As indicated through the evaluations, the training program appears to be very successful in most respects and we continue to use the feedback we receive to improve the program.

Recent Innovations

• Timing. We schedule the quarterly sessions early within each quarter in an attempt to cover topics that coincide more closely with the challenges currently being faced by the first-year TAs.
• Content. The topic areas covered in the TA training program have been adapted over the years to better serve the needs of the participants. We continue to cover topics that relate to basic instruction skills such as leading discussion, writing exams, grading, effective lecturing – as well as addressing TA issues and challenges. We have also expanded our program to include more advanced topics, such as teaching resources, philosophy of teaching, designing a course, and tips on developing course-related web sites.

Useful Links

Office of Instructional Consultation

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