Successful "completion of the TA training initiative

A primary EOS-SEI project objective is to enable, facilitate, and support faculty and teaching assistants (TAs) to follow best practices for achieving departmental teaching and learning goals while retaining ownership of their courses. Towards that end, the project will learn what other units and departments are doing to support development of graduate students as teaching assistants, and then develop efficient and effective TA training modules for the earth ocean and atmospheric sciences context.

Training graduate students in best teaching practices will not only help our undergraduates and faculty, but will also improve the effectiveness of teaching that graduate students become involved when they finish their degrees and enter the work force elsewhere.

Since the initial pilot project in fall 2007, a new course called EOSC 516 - Teaching and Learning in the Earth Sciences has become a regular component of most graduate students' course work.

Work was lead by Brett Gilley and supported by UBC's TAG (Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth).

The following staff and graduate students have been instrumental in helping make this work a success:

• Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze,
• Peter Lelievre
• Melissa Gray
• Brendan Smithyman