Understanding Your Students: Approaches for Graduate Student Instructors

Learning Styles
Just as every teacher has a personal instructional style, every student has a preferred way of learning. As an instructor, understanding the range of styles and keeping them in mind while you are planning will help make your classes more successful.

Teaching to All Types
You don't have to design each activity or class component to reach every learning style. However, your class as a whole should be diverse enough to reach everyone. Here are some tips for achieving that goal.

Promising Practices

My main interaction with students has been during office hours when I get the opportunity to work individually with many of them. In my experience, students are often intimidated by statistical language. While I may not have an awareness of a particular student’s preferred learning style, I’ve found from working with a variety of different individuals that pictorial representations of abstract terms appears more meaningful to them.

Once students gain that basic understanding, I try to provide additional examples in which they can feel more confident in their ability to master the material. I also emphasize the importance of inventing their own research studies in their area of interest. This requires the student to integrate various higher order thinking skills, which hopefully leads to a better understanding of the concepts. More importantly, they can transfer classroom knowledge into real world applications.

Online Learning Styles Resources (pdf)
The Faculty Innovation Center at the College of Engineering provides descriptions of three learning styles inventories that are used in engineering schools.

How You Can Help Students in Distress
While most students cope successfully with the demands of college life, for some the pressures become overwhelming and unmanageable. The expression of interest and concern by a faculty or staff member may be a critical factor in helping a struggling student re-establish the emotional equilibrium necessary for success in a university environment. The UT Counseling and Mental Health Center offers helpful information for dealing with these situations.

Suggestions for Utilizing the Student Self-Description of Learning (pdf)
Learning is enhanced by improved effectiveness on the parts of both the teacher and the students. In addition to asking your students for feedback on your teaching during the semester, it is also beneficial for them to assess the effectiveness of their learning.

Student Mid-term Self Evaluation (pdf)
A brief student self-evaluation tool to help clarify your course goals.

TA Talk Highlights
TA TALK is a publication of the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment (DIIA) at UT Austin. TA Talk provides information for GSIs regarding teaching, learning, and university resources.