Starting with the TA: Training the Professor of the 1990s

Extract

Virtually half of today's professors will retire in the coming decade (Bowen and Sosa, 1989). This creates both an urgent need and a great opportunity for American colleges and universities to recruit a new generation of educators. Most of the future faculty are in graduate school today. How can this cohort best be prepared today to become effective classroom teachers?

Many universities now have teaching assistant training programs and others are establishing them. Most TA training programs, however, are prompted by short-term concerns about the quality of instruction given undergraduate students today rather than by long-term concerns about the quality of the professoriate tomorrow (Sell, 1987). Since TAs in doctoral granting institutions do a large share of the teaching of undergraduates, short-term concerns are important. Nevertheless, TA training can and should be designed to serve both short- and long-term goals. The TA training program that seeks to achieve long-term goals must deliberately plan its program so that important skills associated with the professor, but not commonly associated with the TA, are taught. Two of these important skills are employed before the first class: course planning and syllabus writing.

Course planning, an activity that occurs before the first class (Stark et al., 1989), improves the course significantly for both teacher and student by clarifying goals and determining ways of achieving them. The syllabus explains the course plan (as well as other information) to the student and, hence, communicates information crucial to the success in the course.