By
Anastasia Ching
Arizona Daily Wildcat
In-depth evaluations will yield more information on TAs' strengths, weaknesses
Instructor evaluations will hold more weight this semester, as graduate teaching assistants will be subject to early semester evaluations and developmental intervention.
The UA Graduate College, the Office of Assessment and Enrollment Research and the University Teaching Center are working together to start a pilot project for the early evaluation of graduate teaching assistants teaching full-time in a course.
The UA Graduate College is providing the funding for the pilot project, while the Office of Assessment and Enrollment Research will be carrying out the evaluation process, said Dorian Voorhees, assistant dean of the Graduate College.
The pilot project comes after various departments around campus showed an interest in improving graduate teacher assistant training, said Rick Kroc, director of assessment and enrollment research.
"The English department has its own graduate TA evaluation process, but the smaller departments on campus don't have the resources to conduct their own evaluations," Kroc said. "We think it would be valuable to do an assessment early in the semester so the TAs can get help early in the semester."
The evaluation process - to be conducted in the fourth or fifth week of the semester - will consist of a long form evaluation sheet containing more diagnostic questions than the short form evaluations, which students fill out at the end of the semester, Kroc said.
If, after the evaluation process, a graduate TA is identified as needing additional developmental support, then he or she will be referred to the University Teaching Center for instructional training during the semester, Kroc added.
Terri Riffe, director of the University Teaching Center, stressed that the instructional support that will be given to the graduate TAs will vary depending on the problems the evaluations show the TA to have.
"The training available runs the gamut of the entire instructing range -assistance in designing a class session, help in delivering a lecture, advice on establishing a rapport with students - with the goal of intervening and solving instructional concerns early," Riffe said.
In the past, the training offered by the University Teaching Center has been optional for TAs. Now, adding the step of a formal assessment process serves to give assistance to TAs that had once been available only on a voluntary basis, Riffe said.
As this is a pilot program in its early stages, it will be offered to a maximum of 10 departments on a first come, first serve basis, Riffe said.
"This is a great opportunity for the university to become more proactive in helping graduate TAs and improving undergraduate education," Riffe said.
Leading the TA development seminars will be Kyla Macario and Marcia Coimbra of the University Teaching Center.
Randy Richardson, interim vice president for undergraduate education, sees the pilot evaluation program as an opportunity to assist graduate TAs in the early stages of their teaching careers, not punish them.
"This program is being offered to help improve teaching effectiveness, not to root out terrible teachers," Richardson said. "We hope that our process of selecting graduate (teaching) assistants does that."
