Instructional Skills Workshop for Grad Students
The Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, UBC
July 2010
Course Description and Syllabus Excerpt
Our three day Instructional Skills Workshops (ISWs) are designed for graduate students interested in developing and enhancing their instructional skills. It caters to individuals new at teaching as well as those who wish to refresh and enhance their skills…participants benefit from practicing skills and sharing ideas in a cooperative environment…during the workshop you will teach 3 short lessons and receive feedback from your peers.
You will work closely with peers and trained facilitators (who are themselves UBC graduate students and teaching assistants from across campus). In this supportive atmosphere you will have a chance to begin to develop new teaching skills, to enhance existing skills, and/or to try new and challenging ideas. The workshop consists of teaching practice, theory application, and topical sessions specifically relevant to Teaching Assistants and Graduate Students at UBC. We take a learner-centered approach that may have you looking at your students in a whole new light!
My Experience
This course was extremely exhausting and extremely rewarding. It is 24 hours long and I took the version taught over three consecutive days. During this time, you design and deliver three, five minute presentations that are adjudicated by your peers. Aside from the pace, this course keeps you on your toes and really challenges your assumptions about teaching and pedagogy.
Did you notice that the description above uses the phrase “learner-centred”? Adjusting myself to a learner-centred classroom was challenging. I am accustomed to and operate quite happily under the teacher-centred philosophy. Through the activity on learning styles, I deduced that I am:
- reflective learner who has no problem sitting and listening attentively. Traditional lectures suit me just fine.
- an intuitive learner who is excited by abstract ideas and philosophies rather than fact collecting.
- most definitely a global learner and am often irritated by people who don’t spontaneously come to conclusions but rather have to follow careful steps before they understand a problem/idea.
- As a writer, I’m a verbal learner and remember best what I hear, as well as the texts that I see.
Surprise, surprise! These are all classic learning styles that capital “A” Academia—especially the humanities—value and nurture. No wonder I’m in grad school.
Since taking this course, I plan each lecture around learning styles and try to incorporate the needs of my students. Whereas I had the tendency to unwittingly alienate other types of learners, I believe I am including everyone to the best of my ability now.