Catherine Drennan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

So Drennan, an HHMI professor and now an HHMI investigator, decided the best way to improve the class was to revamp the TA experience. In 2007, she joined with fellow instructor Elizabeth Vogel Taylor, a recent graduate of the doctoral program in chemistry at MIT, to expand TA training by creating a TA “boot camp” to be held the week before school began.

		Lessons in Diversity: TA Training at MIT Everyone has moments of feeling not up to the task...

The boot camp included everything from team building exercises to advice from former TAs to a discussion on teaching students from diverse backgrounds. What's more, the TAs had to apply to teach the class. The number of applicants for what had been a dreaded assignment surprised Drennan and Taylor: 11 of 44 chemistry graduate students applied in 2007, the program's first year, and 16 of 41 did the same in 2008.

The results have been better than Drennan imagined. Student complaints have been replaced by enthusiasm about chemistry. And, rather than grumbling about their teaching assignment, the class's dozen TAs get together to grade papers, share ideas, and talk about the best ways to help problem students.

“It seems to defy the laws of thermodynamics,” Drennan says. “The amount of time we've put into TA training is so little compared to the time it saved with complaints and issues later.”

While TA training itself isn't new, more faculty like Drennan say comprehensive TA training improves large introductory science courses for everyone involved: undergraduates, TAs, and professors. Undergraduates get better instruction in labs and recitation sections where one-on-one instruction most often occurs. TAs learn from the beginning how to handle common classroom problems and present challenging material in an engaging way. And faculty can worry more about teaching and less about complaints from students.

“I was actually very excited they were giving this type of training because you really want to put your best self forward when you're teaching,” says Mike Morrison, who was a TA for Drennan's class in fall 2008. That is especially important when teaching freshmen who are often scared and overcommitted, he says. “You need to connect with these students early on, and to do that you really need to have a basis and a foundation to teach. I had never had that before.”

Photo: Leah Fasten

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