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Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are an integral part of instruction in most large university settings. The pedagogical training and utilization of this workforce is managed differently at different institutions and changes over time. At Northwestern and the University of Southern California, we are striving to leverage graduate students’ experience in the classroom to maximize the benefit to both their careers and our undergraduate instruction. Devoting effort to high-quality training of GTAs and subsequent opportunities for using that training is a benefit to the department as well as to the graduate student population. Others have made great strides toward this effort, and it is our hope to highlight the unique contributions of many individuals across a broad scope of institutional contexts. We have identified several key aspects of the role of GTAs in undergraduate instruction and the contributions that can potentially be shared by several key individuals, highlighted below. TA Training Methods and Programs Perhaps the most universal experience among institutions that utilize GTAs is the challenge of providing sufficient pedagogical instruction. Many institutions have developed training programs that span from a few days to a course that lasts a full semester. The GRAD-TA PREP Workshop has done an excellent job at bringing representation from physics and chemistry departments together to brainstorm about this subject, but the results inspired by the three-day conference are worthy of the larger venue of BCCE.

Organizer 1

Veronica Berns

Organizer 1 Email
veronica.berns@northwestern.edu
Organizer 2

Rebecca Broyer

Organizer 2 Email
rbroyer@usc.edu
Organizer 3

Stephanie Knezz

Organizer 3 Email
stephanie.knezz@gmail.com
Organizer 4

Jessica Parr

Organizer 4 Email
parr@usc.edu