Newswise — Some of Clarkson University’s entering Ph.D. candidates, facing the role of serving as teaching assistants, for the first time are entering a ground-breaking pilot training program, which could be a model for all of higher education.
Clarkson is testing its revolutionary four-week Summer Institute for Graduate Teaching Assistants, dubbed a “TA Boot Camp,” as the first step in the students’ post graduate education.
"This unique program is designed for the first time to truly prepare these Ph.D. candidates for their work as teaching assistants, a standard requirement for all such students," said Associate Professor Catherine Snyder, chair of the Department of Education.
She believes that no other university in the country spends more than a week preparing their Ph.D. students to serve as University-level teaching assistants. Assistant Professor of STEM Education Seema Rivera is developing a research project to determine the effectiveness of this summer’s first ever TA boot camp being launched at Clarkson’s Capital Region Campus in Schenectady, N.Y.
Rivera said virtually all existing TA preparatory programs at other universities -- where they exist at all -- are for as little as two days or maybe a week, and most barely spend much of that time in actual teacher training.
Her research project is measuring the effectiveness of the training the TAs are receiving. The faculty on the research team hypothesize that better trained TAs will increase the quality of instruction and support that the undergraduate students receive.
Assuming its success this summer with Clarkson Ph.D. candidates, the program could provide a service for many other universities who, down the road, might consider having their Ph.D. candidates begin their education in this summer program.
“This could be a very interesting development for us,” said Dean of Arts and Sciences Peter Turner. “Our TA boot camp could become a model for higher education on a much broader level.” It is his view that until now there has been no insistence that college-level teachers would actually get teacher training. “This could have a potentially far-reaching impact on academia,” he said.
When Turner learned about the profile of the typical master of arts in teaching (MAT) student and the intensive summer they participate in to prepare for teaching in the fall, he immediately recognized how such a program could work for the teaching assistants in Clarkson’s Ph.D. programs.
“Our incoming TAs are much like our MAT students. That is, very successful students with bachelor’s degrees in content areas (math, chemistry, biology…) who will be given responsibility for a classroom in September,” Turner said.
From that general idea, a curriculum was drafted to meet the specific pedagogical and professional learning needs of TAs. “We now have a complete curriculum, which is being piloted this summer with our first cohort of accepted TAs,” he said.
Whether an incoming TA plans a career in industry or academia, the skills garnered as a leader in the classroom will substantiate the skill set they will develop over their years at Clarkson. The curriculum consists of three courses designed by a multi-disciplinary team of Arts and Sciences faculty: STEM Methods, STEM Literacy and Professional Communications.
Classes are now in session from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The curriculum includes collaborative events with the MAT students, as well as visiting lectures from Arts and Sciences faculty.
On August 5 the students will be brought to the Clarkson's main campus in Potsdam, N.Y., where they will meet their faculty advisors face-to-face for the first time and begin their work toward Ph.D.s.
Plans are being made to provide support and continued professional development to the cohort as they move through their years at Clarkson. This may include a certificate embedded in their Ph.D., which emphasizes their expertise in higher education pedagogy.
The “boot camp” term actually came from students enrolled in a long-existing and parallel summer program created some 25 years ago to prepare master of arts in teaching degree students who plan to teach at the high school level, said Snyder.
After the merger of Union Graduate College into Clarkson University, early this year, Snyder collaborated with Turner to develop this parallel teaching assistant program for Ph.D. candidates. The two campuses have thus integrated the Ph.D. programs at the school’s main campus with the long-established programs in education at the university’s new Schenectady campus.
“This new curriculum for the entering Ph.D. candidates is being field tested this summer,” said Snyder. The enrollment includes students seeking advanced degrees in chemistry, biology and math. Some of the lab work and other course work in teaching is being shared with the master's degree students.
“It is noteworthy that this is really breaking new ground in giving serious education training to incoming Ph.D. candidates,” said Turner. When the Ph.D. candidates arrive in Potsdam in August they will have acquired very valuable skills, he said. In addition, a significant inclusion in this course work is the communication element -- of particular importance since some of the students are from outside the United States, and they’ll eventually be serving as teaching assistants in classes mostly dominated by undergraduate students from North America.
Once this summer program ends in early August, Snyder said the Ph.D. candidates will move to Potsdam to continue the pursuit of their advanced degrees. But they’ll be arriving on campus with intensive, extensive and highly valuable training in how to teach.
Clarkson University educates the leaders of the global economy. One in five alumni already leads as an owner, CEO, VP or equivalent senior executive of a company. With its main campus located in Potsdam, N.Y., and additional graduate program and research facilities in the Capital Region and Beacon, New York, Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university with signature areas of academic excellence and research directed toward the world's pressing issues. Through more than 50 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, arts, education, sciences and the health professions, the entire learning-living community spans boundaries across disciplines, nations and cultures to build powers of observation, challenge the status quo, and connect discovery and innovation with enterprise.
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