Hello!
We’re excited to welcome you to the University of Colorado at Boulder English Department. We’re the Lead Graduate Teachers, Tom LeCarner and David Visser, and we wanted to send along a brief note to let you know what to expect during the Fall of 2006.
The Lead GTs serve in several different capacities in the English Department—developing and conducting pedagogy workshops, acting as liaisons between graduate students and faculty, and fostering a supportive creative/intellectual graduate community. Whether or not you will be teaching in the 2006-2007 year, we hope that you will use us as a resource.
Centralized Graduate Teacher Program Events:
One of the first events this Fall is the Graduate Teacher Program’s Fall Intensive, which takes place on campus between August 17–19. This is your chance to attend seminars on teaching techniques, pedagogy, and graduate student professional development. The Graduate Teacher Program (GTP) supports not only graduate teachers on campus, but provides information and advice about pursuing your career, both while at the University and after graduation. If you will be teaching, you are required to attend the workshop on sexual harassment; however, we think you may find a number of the other workshops valuable as well. You can view a complete schedule of the workshops on the GTP website (http://www.colorado.edu/gtp/events/fall.html). The Fall Intensive is supplemented by Friday Forums and Special Workshops throughout the semester, providing abundant learning opportunities for teachers and non-teachers alike.
Departmental Events:
If you plan on teaching for the department, you are required to attend a weekly pedagogy workshop series during the Fall 2006 semester. These workshops, which meet on Friday afternoons at 2:00pm, are designed specifically to help graduate student instructors prepare and manage their teaching (GPTIs with prior teaching experience may be exempt from some of the workshops). In the past, these workshops have included information on learning styles, active learning techniques, conceptualizing the teaching of reading and writing, and more. These sessions will be led by us, various faculty, and panels composed of current graduate teachers.
We’ll be sending you an e-mail over the summer to introduce ourselves more fully, explain some of these items in more detail, and give you the opportunity to correspond with us further. We look forward to meeting you during orientation activities in August, but if you have questions before then, we encourage you to e-mail one of us directly at Thomas.lecarner@colorado.edu or David.visser@colorado.edu
Until then, have a great summer. We look forward to working with you in the 2006–2007 year.
Best,
Tom LeCarner
Lead Graduate Teacher
English Literature
University of Colorado
David Visser
Lead Graduate Teacher
English Literature
University of Colorado
Fall 2006
Mable Van Duzee Room, Norlin Library
Friday 2pm-4pm
This workshop is designed to prepare you for your upcoming teaching assignment in either the English Department or the Program for Writing & Rhetoric. Over the course of the semester we will introduce and discuss a variety of different ways of looking at and thinking about teaching. Along with our readings, discussions, and group work in the lab, we will also be bringing in panels of faculty members here at CU as well as experienced graduate teachers to share their experience in the classroom, and to discuss methods of teaching and practical strategies that you will be able to put to use in your own classes.
We will have required readings and a few brief homework assignments to discuss throughout the semester. Also, if you don’t already have a teaching assignment for the fall, you will each be required to “guest teach” in an undergraduate literature or writing course. This will give you the opportunity to put ideas from the workshops, panels, and readings into practice.
Attendance: Attendance is required for all incoming English MA and PhD graduate students who are teaching or wish to teach for the department. Your participation in the workshop is what makes it valuable; we want this to be a very practical experience that you can use as you develop your own methods and style of teaching, and in order to do that, a robust exchange of ideas is essential.
Teaching Philosophy (Part One): For our second meeting, you will prepare a written statement of your teaching philosophy as you see it at this point in your academic career. Based on what you have experienced as a student, you will outline what you want to become as a teacher.
Guest Teaching: As mentioned, each of you (provided you don’t already have a teaching assignment) will be required to guest teach in one of your peers’ classrooms at some point during the semester. This will involve a few steps, and you should begin thinking about this project sooner rather than later:
a)You will observe at least one class session in advance of your teaching day in order to get ideas for your guest appearance and to see how the particular class functions. Observation is an excellent way to see what works, what doesn’t work, and to steal good ideas—we’re not reinventing the wheel here.
b)You will then prepare a 20-minute lesson (making sure to coordinate with your host teacher). This does not need to be a lecture; it can include discussion, group activity, an interactive lecture, etc.
c)Finally you will teach your lesson, observe whatever else happens in the class for that day (classes are either 50 or 75 minutes), and debrief with your host teacher afterwards.
d)We will reserve a day later in the semester to discuss your experiences in the classroom as a group.
Teaching Philosophy (Redux): For the final workshop on December 1st, you will each prepare a second, revised version of your teaching philosophy in light of your reading and your experiences during the semester, either in the classroom, or in the workshop.
Weekly Schedule:
September 1: Introductions, discuss syllabus and the workshop format, teaching philosophy
September 8: Guest Lecturer: Professor Martin Bickman
September 15: Syllabus Workshop
September 22: Guest Lecturer: Professor Martin Bickman
September 29: Learning Styles Exercise
October 6: Assignment Building Workshop (Panel)
October 13: Grading Workshop
October 20: Problems in teaching Workshop (Panel)
October 27: Plagiarism/Honor Code Workshop
November 3: How to facilitate discussion (Panel)
November 10: Diversity in the classroom (Panel)
November 17: Guest teaching experiences
November 24: No Workshop (Thanksgiving holiday)
December 1: Final Discussion/Teaching philosophy