Instructor Training Symposium
Facilitated by Natalie Thompson, New Shoots Facilitator
& John Mavin, Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology
October 25th 2010, November 29th 2010, February 28th 2011
Course Description and Syllabus Excerpt:
This course is designed to prepare creative writing MA students in instructional roles for their duties and responsibilities as Teacher Assistants and/or New Shoots program teachers. A wide variety of methodological and pedagogical topics will be discussed and will have accompanying in-class activities. By the end of each 2.5-hour symposia session, students will discuss and engage in teacher training dialogue and activities that are centred on the creative writing workshop and creative writing classroom or lecture theatre. The symposium is a place where creative writer-teachers can access and experiment with different tools that build their individual teacher toolboxes.
First Symposia Session
- Writing learning objectives and expressive outcomes
- How to design creative writing rubrics forstudent work
- How to implement creative writing workshop guidelines
- Giving constructive and up-building feedback
Second Symposia Session:
- Lesson planning basics
- How to accommodate various learning styles
- Marking/evaluating creative writing pieces
Third Symposia Session:
- How to lead discussions
- Questioning techniques for small classes and large lecture theatres
- Coaching tips for teachers who have students giving a public reading
- How to engage resistant learners
My Experience
As the first New Shoots Coordinator for the Department of Creative Writing at UBC, part of my job description was to implement some sort of training for the teachers. The New Shoots program has existed for 25 years and for all of these years, no training was provided. This means that the MA students who taught in high schools never met together to talk about what sorts of teaching techniques would work for secondary school classrooms, their experiences, their needs and apprehensions. Indeed, quite a problem.
While a participant in the Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology’s (CTLT) Instructional Skills Workshop, I met John Mavin, the workshop facilitator, who is also an Alumni of the Creative Writing MA program and a former New Shoots teacher. And so, when it came time to plan the symposia training sessions, John was eager to remedy the “no-training situation” with me.
Together, we examined the New Shoots teacher’s duties and created a symposium that would be a crash course in teaching creative writing. We invited the teacher’s assistants from the Creative Writing Department to join us and there was a wonderful dialogue between teachers working with different age groups.
As a result of this symposia, The Creative Writing Department now budgets for New Shoots and TA teacher training.
Feedback
A sample of the anonymous feedback from the third symposium:
| The best part of today’s session for me was | because |
| I learned a lot throughout I would say. I enjoyed the sections on questioning and also the discussion about setting up parameters before a class | Why? Well, I think these techniques will be very useful in a practical way. |
| smaller class, a greater sense of participation | I learn best by doing, not taking notes |
| All of it, really. Being reminded that leading discussions in an important skill to culture. | I need to work on engaging people with learning styles different than mine. |
| Watching videos + doing exercises related to discussion techniques | it was active + interactive; it was practical |
| Simply the fact that this symposium took place near the end of my New Shoots teaching experience. | it helped me to apply the situations I have found myself in, while a New Shoots teacher to discussions – and hear about others’ teaching experiences thus far. |