The Graduate Student Program Development Team at CTLT supports UBC faculties and departments in developing and implementing their TA Training programs, and provides capacity building workshops and resources to help departments lead and maintain their own TA Training programs. We connect with different departments and faculties at different stages of their TA Training program based on where support is needed.

TA Training Program Principles:

• Respect for Teaching Assistants – Our approach is grounded in respect for the needs, desires, and goals of the people we work with. This means base our programming on feedback and suggestions from the TAs within the department, which changes every year, in conversation with theory and research in teaching and learning.
• Respect for Disciplinary Context – We also base our programming on an understanding that different departments think about and practice teaching in different ways, and that while there are common elements (a family resemblance) between elements of teaching and learning that cross disciplines, there are other approaches that are much more discipline specific. This requires close consultation with departments, and the development of a basic understanding (on our part) of the department’s context, so that we can serve as a bridge between theory and disciplinary context.
• Needs-based programming – The programs we develop are directly related to the expressed and understood needs of the departments and the TAs, identified by TAs themselves.
• Peer-Based design and facilitation – TA Training workshops are designed and facilitated by TAs for TAs. The TA development program is a peer-based program in which community of peers help each other develop necessary TAing skills.
• Tools, Strategies, and Guidelines as outcomes of the training – All sessions include practical, immediately applicable strategies and elements that can be used to help TAs accomplish their roles as understood by the TAs themselves.
• Capacity Building – We look to help departments develop internal capacity to lead or co-facilitate on their own, as appropriate to their needs, abilities, and time. This helps to develop educational leadership in the graduate student population, respects department self-determination, while connecting that to research-grounded understanding of teaching and learning.
• CTLT as a Resource – We emphasize at all times that departments are not required to work with us, that we are a resource to be tapped when desired, not as required.