[Greetings! The next few posts focus on recent experiences I had facilitating our International Teaching Assistant Orientation (http://tap.msu.edu/pdf/2010_ITA_Overview.pdf ) and MSU TA Seminar (http://tap.msu.edu/pdf/2010_TA_Overview.pdf) .]
In one of those classic teaching moments, when a profoundly powerful question arises with little time to adequately engage it, I have to admit that I recently fumbled a chance to respond meaningfully to a new TA's questions concerning how transparent an instructor should be with their students the first day of class. Given the timbre of our general workshop discussion, little time remaining, and my concerns over attempting to answer a question that begged so many fundamental issues, I had trouble sorting on the fly. Imagine fish flopping around in the bottom of a skiff and me trying to catch them bare handed, and you'll get some feeling about how my brain was firing.
Hope I can begin to make up for that now.
We do a lot with new instructors and first-day issues (visit http://tap.msu.edu/orientations/tappt.aspx , scroll down to "Creating Learning Environments that Last."). The first day provides powerful chances to set the semester's tone, lay the groundwork for communicating openly, and of course, covering administrative and policy fundamentals. First and foremast, I recommend we don't just explain the syllabus and let them leave. To use my (JMU) friend Chris Womack's phrasing, "Hit the ground running..." with your new students, and make sure they know how to find ways to keep up (Also, be willing to slow down when you need to.).
Recognizing that classrooms are social spaces, and that part of building classroom community means engaging your charges in multiple ways beyond content, inevitably teachers must come to grips with how to much to give away of themselves. Fact is, all kinds of great teachers give up widely variant amounts of who they are to their students. One need not be a friend to our charges, but it helps to at least display a modicum of friendliness. When asked what they'd reveal to their students, a recent group of faculty I worked with were all over the place concerning whether to reveal political views, socioeconomic status, religious inclinations, home phone numbers, opinions about texts, and sexual preferences. Many, concerned that in a position of power that their opinions would inappropriately shape their students' views, decline to share much of themselves at all. Others, believing that transparency justifies kind of social (and pedagogical) legitimacy, were more apt to share background information about themselves.
What details do you share? Why?
And it's the Why's of my new TA's views that had me in a bit of a rhetorical twist earlier this week. With a fervent nod to Patricia Cranton's powerful little book, Becoming an Authentic Teacher... (and its impact on my thinking about reflective practice), in my First Day sessions I broach the notion of considering one's "authentic" teaching self...at least in terms of one's developing self as they decide how to interact with their students. In that context, and with ten minutes to go in the program, a workshop participant asked, "Should you come out to your students on the first day?"
Those are the kind of questions that have me nodding...reaching for my water bottle...and duck-feet-beneath-the-water scrambling for an answer that validates, informs, and encourages but also one that communicates a bit of a warning, particularly for conservative middle-class students like those at my state institution. For the record, I'm not sure sexual preference is one of those things I'd want to communicate. But then, apparently I'm not primarily a social justice kind of instructor (See and take Collins and Pratt's Teaching Perspectives Inventory http://www.edst.educ.ubc.ca/faculty/pratt/DPtpi.html - It's not that I don't advocate for social justice, it's that my sensitivity to diversity issues apparently has me damn careful about advocating for certain types of change. Oh, I'm a Developmentalist.) . Anyway, after a few slugs of H2O, I responded with a watered down, "I think you need to consider how coming out "...helps, and not hinders..." your communication with your students." [Okay, I stole some of that that phrasing from Linda Johnsrud.].
I've seen hundreds of reactions to what I've had to say about things, many of them encouraging, but this one reminded me of all the times I've encountered eyes glazing, smiles dropping, heads nodding, and in some cases, sneers emerging on the faces of those who weren't hearing anything helpful from me. Upshot? He left, the workshop ended, and I immediately began engaging friends and colleagues about how to better meet those kinds of queries.
I'll continue this story once I've made some sense of what my mates tell me. In the meantime, your comments, suggestions are welcome. I've been a strong diversity advocate and spokesperson for STEM education, and would like to think my ears and head are open to talking about (and supporting) what it means to be oneself as a teacher. In short, anything that opens communication and prompts reflection is fine by me. But of course, you can't always control what others think. If we're not sure we can motivate, how do we absolutely avoid de-motivating?
All the best,
KMJ
[Note: Profound thanks to A. T. Miller, Director, Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates, U of Michigan, for his input and support. His worksheet, "Teaching Diversity: Inclusion in the Classroom for the Educational Benefit of All," remains a fundamental part of my presentations on higher education diversity issues.]
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Friday, August 27, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Boundary-Setting, Incivility, and Why I Want to Live in Hawaii with M.D.
The following is a response to a valued colleague who is thinking about how to work with his faculty on boundary setting issues. My templates for preventing and handling incivility and boundary setting are on our web-page, http://tap.msu.edu/workshops/resources.aspx. I thought that letting you into my thinking about how I define workshops themes on this subject might prompt meaningful reflection for you. As always, contact me with questions and comments.
NOTE: If you are interested in teaching and learning issues in higher education, I recommend that you join to very helpful listservs: 1) Rick Reis's Tomorrow's Professor http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/index.shtml and 2) the Professional and Organizational (POD) Network Listserv https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=POD .
"Dear M.,
Because I believe all development is local, let’s do this together and you shape themes I use relevant to your environs. How about if we consider the issues following as a means for engaging conversation about what it means to set boundaries? Allow me to advise, you cannot teach others in this context to set authentic boundaries (I believe professionals exist in other learning contexts in which one can, but not our general training ones.) Of course, I’m addressing something beyond the importance of regulating contact and establishing clear guidelines. In my experience with talking about these issues, I’ve found that many of my colleagues must come to an understanding that boundaries exist for a reason, they must identify what they are, they must embrace the idea that social space is ALWAYS negotiable, and that sometimes my friend, we lose. That said, a little awareness raising can go a long way to helping others prepare, organize, and facilitate learning contexts that minimize potential conflict. I generally consider boundary setting, volitions, errors, crossing, repairing, and retaliating (I’m not kidding) as foundations for my workshops.
1. One person’s “no problem” is another’s “I can’t believe you just did that!” And wow, how opening a newspaper can hit people in different ways always amuses and confounds me. One thing I try to do is to get folks to identify what bugs them. After doing that, multiple opportunities arise to talk about why. I will send you an attachment personally. It’s a template for a longitudinal project I have in the works. It’s unique in that it asks participants not only to rank behaviors, but also that they rank their imagined abilities to handle them. Until I get official funding for this, you are welcome to use it as you see fit. If you do, share your results with me. Oh, I’ve got my conflict stuff on our website too. It’s available for all.
2. Why consider this stuff? My quick public response is that we’re concerned with creating workable and effective learning environments and that inappropriate conflict inhibits our ability to do that. But that’s not why I really do this. Conflict makes me extremely nervous, especially the kinds we most often address, those emotional assaults that render meaningful dialogue impossible. (I, of course, am “heart full” in sympathy with those feeling physically threatened. But that is a rarity.). In fact, emotional bullying is wildly more threatening to me than a threatened punch in the face. The latter is so easy to deal with because it’s clear. Anyway, as developers, the large proportion of what we face with our charges is helping them to avoid or negotiate gray space – that thing that emerges when dialogue seems impossible.
3. A dear colleague, decades of powerful impact and support, believes that as teachers, our decisions about what we do shouldn’t be about solving our own problems, needs. By the way, what are those? I am in agreement with her for most issues. I’d like to think that teaching is the ultimate expression of my desire to connect with the human race – of course, that could cause some conflict, but you know what I mean…
4. What’s making us respond in certain ways to certain situations?
5. CASE STUDY – Do you invite undergrads in a senior seminar over to your palatial hut on Waimea for dinner and class? What about your grad students? Really? Why? Why not? [Heck, when can I hang out in your five-bedroom, three-level 10,000 square foot party house?]
6. When are boundaries “blur-able?” When not? Braxton and Bayer’s (1999) fine work concerning “norms” still shapes my thinking about this stuff. What absolutely positively shouldn’t be “crossed.” What’s less serious?
7. Are boundaries ethical or moral issues? Both?
8. When do you break your own rules? You don’t? Really?
9. At the root of many boundary setting issues, lies a startling denial of what it means to have power in the teacher-student relationship. Wow. Can I hear an “Amen!” from the congregation!
10. How does your professional life emerge in your teaching? Just what are we modeling?
Okay – let me know how you take my seminal themes and mold them into the great instructional/conversational space you create for your faculty."
KMJ
NOTE: If you are interested in teaching and learning issues in higher education, I recommend that you join to very helpful listservs: 1) Rick Reis's Tomorrow's Professor http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/index.shtml and 2) the Professional and Organizational (POD) Network Listserv https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=POD .
"Dear M.,
Because I believe all development is local, let’s do this together and you shape themes I use relevant to your environs. How about if we consider the issues following as a means for engaging conversation about what it means to set boundaries? Allow me to advise, you cannot teach others in this context to set authentic boundaries (I believe professionals exist in other learning contexts in which one can, but not our general training ones.) Of course, I’m addressing something beyond the importance of regulating contact and establishing clear guidelines. In my experience with talking about these issues, I’ve found that many of my colleagues must come to an understanding that boundaries exist for a reason, they must identify what they are, they must embrace the idea that social space is ALWAYS negotiable, and that sometimes my friend, we lose. That said, a little awareness raising can go a long way to helping others prepare, organize, and facilitate learning contexts that minimize potential conflict. I generally consider boundary setting, volitions, errors, crossing, repairing, and retaliating (I’m not kidding) as foundations for my workshops.
1. One person’s “no problem” is another’s “I can’t believe you just did that!” And wow, how opening a newspaper can hit people in different ways always amuses and confounds me. One thing I try to do is to get folks to identify what bugs them. After doing that, multiple opportunities arise to talk about why. I will send you an attachment personally. It’s a template for a longitudinal project I have in the works. It’s unique in that it asks participants not only to rank behaviors, but also that they rank their imagined abilities to handle them. Until I get official funding for this, you are welcome to use it as you see fit. If you do, share your results with me. Oh, I’ve got my conflict stuff on our website too. It’s available for all.
2. Why consider this stuff? My quick public response is that we’re concerned with creating workable and effective learning environments and that inappropriate conflict inhibits our ability to do that. But that’s not why I really do this. Conflict makes me extremely nervous, especially the kinds we most often address, those emotional assaults that render meaningful dialogue impossible. (I, of course, am “heart full” in sympathy with those feeling physically threatened. But that is a rarity.). In fact, emotional bullying is wildly more threatening to me than a threatened punch in the face. The latter is so easy to deal with because it’s clear. Anyway, as developers, the large proportion of what we face with our charges is helping them to avoid or negotiate gray space – that thing that emerges when dialogue seems impossible.
3. A dear colleague, decades of powerful impact and support, believes that as teachers, our decisions about what we do shouldn’t be about solving our own problems, needs. By the way, what are those? I am in agreement with her for most issues. I’d like to think that teaching is the ultimate expression of my desire to connect with the human race – of course, that could cause some conflict, but you know what I mean…
4. What’s making us respond in certain ways to certain situations?
5. CASE STUDY – Do you invite undergrads in a senior seminar over to your palatial hut on Waimea for dinner and class? What about your grad students? Really? Why? Why not? [Heck, when can I hang out in your five-bedroom, three-level 10,000 square foot party house?]
6. When are boundaries “blur-able?” When not? Braxton and Bayer’s (1999) fine work concerning “norms” still shapes my thinking about this stuff. What absolutely positively shouldn’t be “crossed.” What’s less serious?
7. Are boundaries ethical or moral issues? Both?
8. When do you break your own rules? You don’t? Really?
9. At the root of many boundary setting issues, lies a startling denial of what it means to have power in the teacher-student relationship. Wow. Can I hear an “Amen!” from the congregation!
10. How does your professional life emerge in your teaching? Just what are we modeling?
Okay – let me know how you take my seminal themes and mold them into the great instructional/conversational space you create for your faculty."
KMJ
Monday, August 9, 2010
Building Your Own Professional "Tool Box"
Cheers, my last post has me thinking more about that pre-semester development "head" me and my mates get into; that would be the one focused on gearing up for the Orientation things we do pre-semester. Most of us want to make sure we're getting to our colleagues everything we can to help them 1) have a great TA year teaching and, 2) put into play opinions, options, and ways of thinking that have them creating their own means for getting all the professional development they want (Whew! My one-sentence teaching philosophy? Arm my charges with everything I can so they can teach themselves.... What's yours?).
My colleagues at MSU and I have recently discussed professional development books for future faculty. Darley, et al., The Compleat Academic: A Career Guide (2004, 2nd Ed. I think there is a new one.) came up last week. Although not focused specifically on being "The Compleat Graduate Student" (Come on! Kevin Carlsmith, get it done!), the book nonetheless does a good job addressing all the issues no one tells you about concerning what it means to be new faculty; or, at least, no one's telling you about this stuff helpfully. I have a plethora of guides to faculty success, preparing for faculty success, successfully negotiating faculty success....you get the picture. They are widely focused, considering the interpretive lenses they use and the populations they address. But I don't think any of them pull together approaches to understanding tacit knowledge about working in the academy as well as The Compleat Academic:... Check out CA. Not for its depth, but for its breadth and it's unflinching approach to some tough subjects.
If you're interested in a great out of the box approach to teaching development, please check out Carolyn Lieberg's Teaching Your First College Class:... . Carolyn will be presenting the opening plenary at our upcoming TA Seminar, August 23rd: http://tap.msu.edu/pdf/2010_TA_Overview.pdf . We're attempting the first "paperless" seminar and will have a ton of great resources on thumb-drives for participants. You can get those resources from our home page soon! Part of our thinking about the flash drive thing? We hope to create an organic base resource for PhD students to collect, alter, and add to their professional development archives. Maybe MSU Teaching Thoughts will get you started thinking about teaching development basics too! http://tap.msu.edu/teachingthoughts/docs/TT2010.pdf
Send us some of the resources that have most helped you!
KMJ
My colleagues at MSU and I have recently discussed professional development books for future faculty. Darley, et al., The Compleat Academic: A Career Guide (2004, 2nd Ed. I think there is a new one.) came up last week. Although not focused specifically on being "The Compleat Graduate Student" (Come on! Kevin Carlsmith, get it done!), the book nonetheless does a good job addressing all the issues no one tells you about concerning what it means to be new faculty; or, at least, no one's telling you about this stuff helpfully. I have a plethora of guides to faculty success, preparing for faculty success, successfully negotiating faculty success....you get the picture. They are widely focused, considering the interpretive lenses they use and the populations they address. But I don't think any of them pull together approaches to understanding tacit knowledge about working in the academy as well as The Compleat Academic:... Check out CA. Not for its depth, but for its breadth and it's unflinching approach to some tough subjects.
If you're interested in a great out of the box approach to teaching development, please check out Carolyn Lieberg's Teaching Your First College Class:... . Carolyn will be presenting the opening plenary at our upcoming TA Seminar, August 23rd: http://tap.msu.edu/pdf/2010_TA_Overview.pdf . We're attempting the first "paperless" seminar and will have a ton of great resources on thumb-drives for participants. You can get those resources from our home page soon! Part of our thinking about the flash drive thing? We hope to create an organic base resource for PhD students to collect, alter, and add to their professional development archives. Maybe MSU Teaching Thoughts will get you started thinking about teaching development basics too! http://tap.msu.edu/teachingthoughts/docs/TT2010.pdf
Send us some of the resources that have most helped you!
KMJ
Friday, August 6, 2010
Gearing Up for a NEW Year! What Do I Wish for New TAs
Many institutions this time of year are gearing up for new TA arrivals. There are several Research One schools around the country who offer fine orientation programs for new teaching assistants. Our three-day inaugural has a spot for new faculty (former TAs) and ABD-TAs (that just looks weird) to provide their "Wish Lists" or, "Best Recommendations" advisories. As I open up TA Confidential this year, I'd like to post a set of recommendations from former TAs , now MSU faculty or on the verge of getting their degrees, which I think might be helpful for those of us just beginning the TA experience. I am grateful to Jim Lucas, PhD; Angelika Kraemer, PhD; Walter Sistunk, PhD; and Daisy Levy, PhD Candidate, for their following recommendations. See also, 2010 MSU Teaching Thoughts # 19: Outstanding MSU TAs Talk about Their Teaching "Best Practices" http://tap.msu.edu/teachingthoughts/docs/TT2010.pdf
What might you add?
Jim Lucas, PhD – Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
Teaching tips
1. Put relevant class policies in the syllabus whenever possible (e.g., attendance and tardiness, late assignments, formatting guidelines, disability information, classroom etiquette, etc.).
2. Good, clear organization can go a long way in helping students learn and keeping them engaged.
3. Try to make the material practical and engaging (e.g., leave time for discussion, insert activities, connect the material to real world problems or issues, let students know how what you are teaching them will be important later, etc.).
4. Students have very different learning styles and abilities, so vary your teaching technique or delivery methods when possible (e.g., use visual aids with your lecture, post notes to ANGEL, give practice exercises, etc.).
5. Address problems and expectations early.
Getting through your program
1. Do something fun or for yourself at least once each weekend.
2. Take advantage of all the events, activities, and opportunities available to you on campus, inside and outside of your department.
3. Build yourself a support group of peers and don’t ever think that you are alone in thinking or feeling what you are going through day-to-day.
4. Overestimate the time it will take you to write your dissertation or thesis.
5. Do not compare yourself to your peers. Your program is your own, and your work style is unique.
Walter Sistrunk, PhD
African American and African Studies Program
Top Ten Pointers
1. Prepare: Don’t assume because you know the subject that you know it well enough to explain it to a person who does not understand. If you know your subject well, you should be able to explain it and its importance to you mother. Just because your subject is hard, its complexity does not excuse you from not being able to explain it.
2. Explanation: Use explanations that do not include the concept that you are explaining. Often times, students have trouble relating disciplinary jargon or categories to the concept or phenomena these terms describe. In other words, repeating to students that a “tesseract” is an “octachoron” does not mean that you have adequately explained what a “tesseract” is.
3. Train: Teach students how to be students. Our ultimate goal is to replicate ourselve.
A part of our job is to teach students how people in our field think about or approach our subject matter. The human body is going to be viewed differently by an oncologist, sociologist, and postmodernist.
4. Get help: Don’t hesitate to ask colleagues for help (professors, fellow students, administrative assistants).
5. Establish a reputation for being on time: It is important that you be on time for the first half of the semester. Things will happen in the latter half of the semester that may cause you to be late. Students will not remember the few times you were late if you establish a habit of being on time.
6. Be assertive not confrontational: When you have to enforce a university policy, simply repeating it is asserting it. There is no need to argue with a student, be polite, even apologize then recite the policy again.
7. Expect mistakes: Expect to make mistakes, don’t take yourself so seriously that you cannot admit that you made a mistake. Also if you don’t know the answer to something admit it. You don’t have to be the authority on everything.
8. Boundaries: We naturally have interest in our professors so expect students to want to get to know you. Setting boundaries will make the task of mentoring and teaching much easier. Sometimes students will share personal information with you. Often they do so because they do not think of you as their friend. Since you have maintained a distance, they feel it is safe to share this information with you.
9. Show you Care: Relate to students that your aim is to build onto their person and that the materials from your class enables them to understand the world “mo’ betta” which makes them a better person.
10. Be flexible but consistent: If you say you are going to do something, do it; if you cannot you better have a good reason why you can’t. However, don’t be so rigid as to not make adjustments that will collectively benefit the entire class.
Daisy Levy – Doctoral Student, Rhetoric and Writing
Top Ten, or How to Sort Out a Graduate School Life
1. Listen first, Think second, Speak third. This will help with just about everything you have to do as a graduate student, and also as a teacher. The context of your life will be shifting constantly, even within one day. Keeping your different roles straight is really REALLY important. Give yourself time.
2. Be flexible. This one may seem like it conflicts with the other entries on the list. But it’s super important. One minute you may have very clear ideas of what you want your students to do, or what you want your dissertation to be about, and the next minute you’ll read something that will completely change your mind. Be open to it.
3. Make boundaries. At the same time that you are striving to stay loose, consider what you have to give, who you want to give it to you, and when you want to give it. You can always readjust, but thinking this through ahead of time will save you time and energy. Be clear with yourself about your limits.
4. Make friends. Someone very smart said to me once, “No one gets through a PhD by herself.” You’ll need your peers, your faculty, and your GRADUATE SECRETARY.
5. Ask for help. This is a huge campus with tons of resources for pretty much anything – academic, tech support and training, counseling, health care, professional development, social life, teaching, financial support, how to get from one end of campus to another. Use it.
6. Strive for a regular schedule, even if you know it won’t happen. ‘Nuff said.
7. Relax.
8. Remember why you are here.
9. Enjoy yourself.
Angelika Kraemer, PhD
Office: Dean of Arts & Letters
Curriculum Development Specialist
1.a. Time management: Set aside certain hours for studying, teaching/grading, research, AND fun.
1.b. Keep in mind, you are student first, and a TA second.
2.a. Teaching: Be strict during the first weeks, set clear rules on day one, dress professionally. You can become more "personable" later in the semester. Be friendly, but not a friend.
2.b. Talk to experienced TAs in your unit for advice on grading, preparation, classes to take etc.
2.c. Be flexible.
3.a. Department: Be nice to the secretaries. They hold the keys to many things! A smile can go long ways.
3.b. Go to your professors' office hours. It's a great way to get to know them, learn more about their research/teaching interests, and it shows them that you care.
4.a. Professionalism: Attend functions in your department/college. See and be seen!
4.b. Be involved and network. Think about serving on department/college committees in later semesters, join area specific regional/national/international organizations, find out more information about the GEU and RSOs.
4.c. Read unit handbooks and know about dos and don'ts.
4.d. Talk to graduate students and professors in other units. Great for networking, learning about courses that might interest you, finding potential research topics.
5.a. Balance life: Eat healthy, do something to keep your sanity and health.
5.b. Take advantage of university resources. Check out the surplus store, university stores, student farmers market.
5.c. Sign up for dental insurance.
What might you add?
Jim Lucas, PhD – Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
Teaching tips
1. Put relevant class policies in the syllabus whenever possible (e.g., attendance and tardiness, late assignments, formatting guidelines, disability information, classroom etiquette, etc.).
2. Good, clear organization can go a long way in helping students learn and keeping them engaged.
3. Try to make the material practical and engaging (e.g., leave time for discussion, insert activities, connect the material to real world problems or issues, let students know how what you are teaching them will be important later, etc.).
4. Students have very different learning styles and abilities, so vary your teaching technique or delivery methods when possible (e.g., use visual aids with your lecture, post notes to ANGEL, give practice exercises, etc.).
5. Address problems and expectations early.
Getting through your program
1. Do something fun or for yourself at least once each weekend.
2. Take advantage of all the events, activities, and opportunities available to you on campus, inside and outside of your department.
3. Build yourself a support group of peers and don’t ever think that you are alone in thinking or feeling what you are going through day-to-day.
4. Overestimate the time it will take you to write your dissertation or thesis.
5. Do not compare yourself to your peers. Your program is your own, and your work style is unique.
Walter Sistrunk, PhD
African American and African Studies Program
Top Ten Pointers
1. Prepare: Don’t assume because you know the subject that you know it well enough to explain it to a person who does not understand. If you know your subject well, you should be able to explain it and its importance to you mother. Just because your subject is hard, its complexity does not excuse you from not being able to explain it.
2. Explanation: Use explanations that do not include the concept that you are explaining. Often times, students have trouble relating disciplinary jargon or categories to the concept or phenomena these terms describe. In other words, repeating to students that a “tesseract” is an “octachoron” does not mean that you have adequately explained what a “tesseract” is.
3. Train: Teach students how to be students. Our ultimate goal is to replicate ourselve.
A part of our job is to teach students how people in our field think about or approach our subject matter. The human body is going to be viewed differently by an oncologist, sociologist, and postmodernist.
4. Get help: Don’t hesitate to ask colleagues for help (professors, fellow students, administrative assistants).
5. Establish a reputation for being on time: It is important that you be on time for the first half of the semester. Things will happen in the latter half of the semester that may cause you to be late. Students will not remember the few times you were late if you establish a habit of being on time.
6. Be assertive not confrontational: When you have to enforce a university policy, simply repeating it is asserting it. There is no need to argue with a student, be polite, even apologize then recite the policy again.
7. Expect mistakes: Expect to make mistakes, don’t take yourself so seriously that you cannot admit that you made a mistake. Also if you don’t know the answer to something admit it. You don’t have to be the authority on everything.
8. Boundaries: We naturally have interest in our professors so expect students to want to get to know you. Setting boundaries will make the task of mentoring and teaching much easier. Sometimes students will share personal information with you. Often they do so because they do not think of you as their friend. Since you have maintained a distance, they feel it is safe to share this information with you.
9. Show you Care: Relate to students that your aim is to build onto their person and that the materials from your class enables them to understand the world “mo’ betta” which makes them a better person.
10. Be flexible but consistent: If you say you are going to do something, do it; if you cannot you better have a good reason why you can’t. However, don’t be so rigid as to not make adjustments that will collectively benefit the entire class.
Daisy Levy – Doctoral Student, Rhetoric and Writing
Top Ten, or How to Sort Out a Graduate School Life
1. Listen first, Think second, Speak third. This will help with just about everything you have to do as a graduate student, and also as a teacher. The context of your life will be shifting constantly, even within one day. Keeping your different roles straight is really REALLY important. Give yourself time.
2. Be flexible. This one may seem like it conflicts with the other entries on the list. But it’s super important. One minute you may have very clear ideas of what you want your students to do, or what you want your dissertation to be about, and the next minute you’ll read something that will completely change your mind. Be open to it.
3. Make boundaries. At the same time that you are striving to stay loose, consider what you have to give, who you want to give it to you, and when you want to give it. You can always readjust, but thinking this through ahead of time will save you time and energy. Be clear with yourself about your limits.
4. Make friends. Someone very smart said to me once, “No one gets through a PhD by herself.” You’ll need your peers, your faculty, and your GRADUATE SECRETARY.
5. Ask for help. This is a huge campus with tons of resources for pretty much anything – academic, tech support and training, counseling, health care, professional development, social life, teaching, financial support, how to get from one end of campus to another. Use it.
6. Strive for a regular schedule, even if you know it won’t happen. ‘Nuff said.
7. Relax.
8. Remember why you are here.
9. Enjoy yourself.
Angelika Kraemer, PhD
Office: Dean of Arts & Letters
Curriculum Development Specialist
1.a. Time management: Set aside certain hours for studying, teaching/grading, research, AND fun.
1.b. Keep in mind, you are student first, and a TA second.
2.a. Teaching: Be strict during the first weeks, set clear rules on day one, dress professionally. You can become more "personable" later in the semester. Be friendly, but not a friend.
2.b. Talk to experienced TAs in your unit for advice on grading, preparation, classes to take etc.
2.c. Be flexible.
3.a. Department: Be nice to the secretaries. They hold the keys to many things! A smile can go long ways.
3.b. Go to your professors' office hours. It's a great way to get to know them, learn more about their research/teaching interests, and it shows them that you care.
4.a. Professionalism: Attend functions in your department/college. See and be seen!
4.b. Be involved and network. Think about serving on department/college committees in later semesters, join area specific regional/national/international organizations, find out more information about the GEU and RSOs.
4.c. Read unit handbooks and know about dos and don'ts.
4.d. Talk to graduate students and professors in other units. Great for networking, learning about courses that might interest you, finding potential research topics.
5.a. Balance life: Eat healthy, do something to keep your sanity and health.
5.b. Take advantage of university resources. Check out the surplus store, university stores, student farmers market.
5.c. Sign up for dental insurance.
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