Be prepared to integrate a variety of strategies into your teaching, and help students learn and perform with integrity.
Matching practice to purpose means selecting classroom activities and instructional strategies that will be most effective in helping students achieve the learning objectives you have set.
Instructors who integrate a variety of teaching strategies are more successful by fostering learning through several modes of information processing. Some courses naturally require more of a certain strategy (for example, as a recitation instructor you might rely on discussion, but as a lab instructor you'll use active learning most).
Leading Discussions
If you're sure that a lecture approach is the best method to achieve the instructional goals of your course, this section provides tips for planning, beginning, delivering, and concluding a lecture effectively.
Lecturing
If you're sure that a lecture approach is the best method to achieve the instructional goals of your course, this section provides tips for planning, beginning, delivering, and concluding a lecture effectively.
Teaching in the Lab
Students attend lab sessions to acquire technical skills and apply the concepts presented in the concomitant lecture section. Student-teacher interactions, and the means for improving them, remain essentially the same as in traditional classroom situations, but there are a few extras to be aware of.
Teaching in the Studio
Teaching studio courses presents some unique and significant challenges. Individual judgment plays a major part (especially in performance areas), and the instructor must grapple with some difficult questions before the course begins.
Asking and Answering Questions
Q&A is the teacher's bread and butter. Effective questions motivate students' curiosity about the topic and allows you to both directly assess students' understanding of the material, and indirectly assess your teaching methods.
Promoting Academic Integrity
You perform your work accurately, honestly, objectively, and ethically. You take full credit for your own work and give full credit to others who have helped you. Instill in your students the same sense of integrity. Help them feel pride in themselves, their work, and their profession.
Your primary responsibility as a GTA is to dissuade your students from academic misconduct, not just to react to suspected incidents. In either case, this section has you covered.