Relationship of 300-level Course to Teaching Conference and Online Ethics Course

The Teaching Conference for New GSIs, held at the beginning of each semester, introduces GSIs to teaching at Berkeley, provides specific techniques and tools GSIs can use to work effectively with students, and gives GSIs strategic preparation to navigate their first few weeks of teaching. Click links to view a sample conference schedule and discipline-cluster workshop outline.

The Online Course gives a detailed, five-module orientation to many professional and ethical issues that arise in teaching as a GSI. We suggest that faculty members take the course and integrate it as an assignment in the 300-level class so that GSIs have the opportunity to pose and discuss questions that the course raises. An overview of the course can be viewed at http://gsi.berkeley.edu/ethics/overview.html.

The 300-level pedagogy courses offered in the departments orient GSIs to the profession of teaching in their specific discipline and support them throughout their first semester as instructors.

The Graduate Council Policy on Appointments and Mentoring of Graduate Student Instructors sets a number of requirements for 300-level courses for first-time GSIs:

First-time GSIs must either have completed or be enrolled in a 300-level semester-long pedagogy seminar on teaching in the discipline offered by the department. In those departments in which a low number of GSIs makes it infeasible to offer such a course, the pedagogy seminar should be taken in another department, with the advice and approval of the GSI’s department and with the consent of the course instructor. First-time GSIs who fail to pass the 300-level course must retake and pass the course before they are eligible to teach again.

The course would normally:

be taught by a faculty member;
address the practical and theoretical knowledge needed by new GSIs in the specific discipline;
have a syllabus that specifies topics week by week, identifies readings, and describes the basis for evaluation
have a meaningful number of units and student contact hours (2-4 units);
have a course reader or textbooks;
have specific assignments for which GSIs are accountable and on which GSIs will be graded.

Please see the summary of the Graduate Council's policy regarding GSI preparation.

For broader thinking about the role of pedagogy seminars in preparing GSIs for teaching, see Michele Marincovich, “Teaching Teaching: The Importance of Courses on Teaching in TA Training Programs,” 145 – 62 in The Professional Development of Graduate Teaching Assistants, ed. Marincovich et al. (Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, 1998). This reading is available in the library of the GSI Teaching & Resource Center.

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