Institutions need effective and efficient methods of professional development for preparing graduate students to teach. These skills are important both for their immediate roles as teaching assistants (TAs) and for their eventual roles in the professoriate. An iterative process model from instructional design can function as a cognitive…

This paper examines the role of international teaching assistant (ITA) trainers within American universities, focusing on their interaction with university administrators, faculty, and students. Through the presentation of research findings and scenarios, it argues that administrators often blame ITA trainers when a problem arises between an ITA…

Sweeping reforms within general education have brought radical changes to traditional writing requirements at many institutions around the country, in some cases extending to the elimination of those requirements. At Portland State University (Oregon), writing is now to be the province of those teaching in the new general education program. Many…

The current practice and theory of preparing college teachers of writing can benefit greatly by considering the history of writing teacher education as practiced in this country since at least 1894. Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) offered the first course for new teachers of writing in 1912, and in the early years of this century,…

A four-month participant-observation study of new teaching assistants examined what happens when "teaching stories" are taken from the margins and placed at the center of a teacher preparation program. New teaching assistants participated in a week-long presemester orientation, took a one-semester Theory and Practice seminar, and enrolled in a…

The key to initiating a training program for new composition instructors or teaching assistants (TAs), or for successfully maintaining one already in place, is to understand that TAs need to be acclimated to the discourse of composition. In addition, departments must clearly define the theories and goals underlying composition instruction, and…

A peer training system for teaching assistants (TAs) that is sponsored by the Writing Program Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts is described from the perspective of the center coordinator. The center seeks to improve teaching in the freshman composition program by providing TAs feedback in a non-threatening and understanding way…

A study of the communication skill needs of the foreign teaching associate (TA) in American universities focused on two questions: (1) What does a foreign TA do to communicate information in an American classroom in terms of comunication strategies and devices for cohesion and coherence of discourse? and (2) How does this compare with the way an…

Ways to interpret data from student ratings of teacher performance and approaches to maximize the use of student ratings are considered, based on the experiences of the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) at the University of Washington (UW). The use of student ratings at UW and other colleges is briefly considered, along with…

A program was developed at the University of Pittsburgh to improve the English language proficiency of foreign teaching assistants (TA's) in order to alleviate communication problems between them and the undergraduates in their classes. Three aspects of the program are described: (1) interdepartmental procedures, (2) testing procedures, and (3)…

This report evaluated a cooperative teaching program designed to provide supplementary diagnostic and prescriptive reading instructional services to New York City elementary school students who were more than one grade level behind in reading. Three hundred students in grades three through six received reading instruction in reading laboratories.…

This manual contains rules for playing both training and contest versions of LAG (Language Assistant Game). LAG (Training) is designed to give language assistants practice in the general teaching skill of explaining. One of the many problems that may confront the assistant in the classroom is the situation where, after reading a passage or telling…

This paper outlines aspects of teaching-assistant programs that make them beneficial to graduate students and to the undergraduates they teach; it then examines faults of the teaching-assistant concept and discusses the original assumptions on which the concept was based. The paper predicts the demise of the teaching-assistant concept in the next…

This report describes the conferences, local programs, and student experiences in year two of the Teaching and Learning in Graduate Geography (TLGG) project, a cooperative effort between university geography departments and the Association of American Geographers. The major purpose of the project was to demonstrate ways to incorporate teaching…

This study compared the effects of "instructor administered" versus "administrator administered" rating forms on student assessment of instruction given by faculty and graduate assistants. Twelve physical education instructors who taught "paired" sections, i.e., two sections of the same activity course, were studied. Each of the instructors…