DIIA Launches ASPECTS Program for Graduate Student Assistants
ASPECTS
or Advancing Student’s Professional Excellence with Certificates
in Teaching Series is being offered by DIIA and the Office of Graduate
Studies to foster professional development among UT’s Graduate Student Instructors
(GSIs). UT Austin considers their GSIs to be a potent resource and offers
this series of seminars to further GSIs’ teaching career skills. The ASPECTS
program encourages ongoing pedagogical, personal, and professional development
throughout their careers.
During the fall and spring semesters, GSIs will have the opportunity to attend ASPECTS sessions presented by teaching, learning, assessment, and technology professionals. Each semester, sessions will be offered at two different times and days of the week to best meet scheduling needs.
Joanne Holladay, who with Mark Decker coordinates the ASPECTS program, conducts several of the seminar sessions and believes that the certificate program has proactive, long-term benefits for GSIs. "ASPECTS is an exciting new program which provides graduate students an opportunity to expand their teaching and professional development in an ongoing and flexible way. This is the first time at UT Austin that graduate students have had such a wide range of options to choose from as they shape their own professional development plans.”
Various topics will be covered such as: Understanding Your Students, Teaching Research Skills, Teaching in the Diverse Classroom, and Promoting Civility and Classroom Management. Sessions can be applied to the certificate program or taken as single sessions to develop good teaching practices.
ASPECTS is an initiative of the Office of the Provost, the Office of Graduate Studies, and DIIA.