Graduate Student Development Research
For the past year I have been working at the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning (FCTL) as a research assistant, charged with investigating how other institutions prepare graduate students for teaching responsibilities and making recommendations for future graduate student teaching development programs. This work has been interesting and educational, both in the research content and in the bright and talented people I have had the priveledge of working with.
My first deliverable in this position was a summary review of teaching development programs for graduate students at NCSU's peer institutions. This researcch, combined with a brief review of related and supporting literature, provided me with a foundation for further work whici is focused on identifying competencies that graduate students with teaching responsibilities should be able to demonstrate. Preliminary work on this subject was presented at the Lilly South Conference in February, 2008. With my colleagues at the FCTL, I have developed a set of competencies that we are currently vetting through a Delphi Method study. We have gathered data from a pilot group who have worked closely with the FCTL's graduate student teaching programs, and will be extending the study across the NCSU campus over the summer of 2008.
There are several advantages to defining level-dependent competencies for graduate students with teaching responsibilities. First, well-defined competencies provide a reliable basis for developing rubrics to evaluate candidates for teaching positions. Individuals responsible for assigning teaching responsibilities to graduate students could then use these competencies and rubrics to appropriately match students and responsibilities. Competencies can also be used to define learning objectives for workshops, seminars, and other teaching development resources, and along with corresponding rubrics, accurately identify those participants who successfully complete the development programs.
