Tag: graduate teaching


Teaching Grad Students Academic Writing

Butterfly pupae at different stages of maturity

by Daniel Riches, Department of History To me, the most important role we serve as teachers of graduate students, especially early-career graduate students, is helping them along the path of transition from being students of a field to becoming (admittedly junior) professionals in that field. This process of becoming a professional is, in my opinion, the very core of graduate education and deserves careful attention, though surprisingly few graduate courses seem to make their role in this process explicit, and […]

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Supporting Successful Graduate Thesis and Dissertation Projects

close-up of shoes walking up stairs

by Delores M. Robinson, Geological Sciences How do we best help our graduate students graduate on time? This is a question the Department of Geological Sciences asked ourselves in 2013. We had quality graduate students, but the time needed for them to reach graduation seemed excessive. The Graduate Program Committee identified the problems and began to change the graduate program to address the problems. Another post is required to outline the problems; however, one specific problem was that the MS […]

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Working with GTAs: Advice from the Experts

"from the real experts" written on the top edge of a book

by Jolene Hubbs, Department of American Studies What can we do to support our graduate teaching assistants in carrying out their responsibilities confidently and capably and in developing their own pedagogic repertoires? To find out, I surveyed my own current and former GTAs, asking them to tell me about their varied experiences working with faculty members. They offered me a veritable cornucopia of insights into what made for stellar as well as, ahem, not-so-stellar experiences. Here are their top three […]

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