Teaching Assistants Head Back to School at the Center for Teaching Excellence

Students will come in contact with many teachers during their time in college. The University of Houston’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) wants to ensure that it’s time well spent.  CTE1

The CTE, a resource for all UH faculty, is hosting an orientation for new teaching assistants and their departmental supervisors. The event is planned from noon to 2 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 23 in the KIVA in Farish Hall.  New graduate instructors will get hands-on instruction for use in their classrooms or labs. 

“Teaching assistants play a key role in many first- and second-year courses for the retention of undergraduates,” said Professor David Mazella, director of the CTE. “These kinds of professionalization programs help graduate students succeed with those students, in their own degree programs and on the job market.”

Started in 2010, the CTE is a faculty-driven effort to improve teaching effectiveness on campus.  The organization is a resource for faculty (tenured and adjunct) and their teaching assistants that makes available information on professional development, new instructional products and software, policies and procedures and teaching and mentoring guides.  The organization also hosts the Teaching and Learning Conference planned this year for mid-November.   

Additionally, the CTE offers a year long professional development program for teaching assistants that includes workshops and hybrid instructional modules under departmental supervisors’ directions.  Graduate instructors also may continue their work to on a Certificate of University Teaching that includes a professional e-portfolio documenting their teaching effectiveness. 

“This will be a great year for CTE and its teaching assistants and faculty programs as we work toward expanding resources for instructors across campus,” Mazella said.  “We hope to provide this level of training for all teaching assistants campus-wide to ensure that this important part of undergraduate instruction is done effectively.” For more information on the UH Center for Teaching Excellence visit http://cte.uh.edu/

WHAT: UH Center for Teaching Excellence Orientation for New Teaching Assistants

WHEN: Noon- 2 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 23

WHERE: KIVA in Farish Hall http://www.uh.edu/maps/


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