During the Morning Plenary session we will hear from a number of speakers addressing teaching-related issues such as active learning, communicating with students, privacy and legal considerations, and campus resources.  At the “Tell It Like It Is” afternoon session, we will hear from a panel of experienced returning TAs who will also facilitate a question and answer segment. It is mandatory to register for these sessions to reserve a space in the workshop.

Instructor: Sarah Heckman

Balancing your research, teaching, service, and your personal life is challenging as a graduate student. Incorporating strong time management skills into your life can help you as you work your way through graduate school. This breakout session will cover time management strategies to help you succeed in graduate school and beyond. We’ll talk about goal setting, long-term planning, and how to prioritize your activities. Additionally, we’ll explore how to balance the realms of faculty responsibility and how to get the most out of your grad school experience while maintaining a positive work-life balance.

Instructor: Beverly Williams

Even when you know your subject matter well, there can be barriers to effective learning and engagement. These barriers can be implicit but can make a great impact. In this session, you will learn how different identities may impact your teaching and student interactions. You will also have an opportunity to explore how assumptions can impact your classroom or lab and gain insights for creating a productive environment.

Instructor: Katie Homar

Academic writing is an interplay of verbal and visual elements, but you may not have thought about assignment instructions in this way. Participants in this workshop will explore and apply effective visual design principles to create “user friendly” assignment instructions. We’ll also combine visual and written strategies for conveying complex instructions to diverse student audiences in paper and online formats. Participants in this workshop will not only leave with tips for creating visually appealing, “stylish” assignment sheets but also with approaches for making technical documents that are usable to broad audiences.

Instructors: Michelle Bartlett and Carrol Warren

Strategic focus helps navigate teaching in the online environment. Four objectives for this interactive session include:  a review of an online teaching engagement model, engagement to peers/instructor, engagement to course material, and customer service. This session will begin with an introduction to the online teaching engagement model, and will use FlipGrid and teamwork concepts to demonstrate engagement to peers and instructor roles. The session will provide examples of ways to engage learners to course material and will end with a discussion on online class related customer service. Attendees will leave the session feeling empowered to create and lead a successful and interactive online class environment.

Instructors: Anne Burke and Alex Carroll

 The NCSU Libraries is dedicated to supporting students, faculty and researchers at NC State — That’s you! In this session you will learn why Librarians are your co-teachers, supporting you and your students in and out of the classroom. From reviewing your research assignments, to teaching your students how to use research databases, to answering your students questions at 2:00am, we’ve got your back! Participants will also learn about the Libraries support for your own research, including citation management, data management planning, copyright and publishing agreements, and more.

Instructor: Sarah Heckman

Balancing your research, teaching, service, and your personal life is challenging as a graduate student. Incorporating strong time management skills into your life can help you as you work your way through graduate school. This breakout session will cover time management strategies to help you succeed in graduate school and beyond. We’ll talk about goal setting, long-term planning, and how to prioritize your activities. Additionally, we’ll explore how to balance the realms of faculty responsibility and how to get the most out of your grad school experience while maintaining a positive work-life balance.

Instructor: Leslie Rand-Pickett

As a Teaching Assistant, you will develop skills and experiences that you can use in future career positions in the near future. This introductory teaching experience also serves as a valuable entry on your CV. The way in which you communicate your teaching experiences–in both written and spoken form– can shape how you are perceived by potential employers. It is therefore important to clarify your intended message, and apply a targeted approach to submitting applications.  By taking inventory of your skills now, you can identify the additional skills, knowledge and experience that you need to develop a strong brand for yourself prior to graduation.  Attend this session to begin identifying your own personal brand, learn more about construction of job search documents, and understand how to adjust your message to be a strong job candidate in both academic and industry settings.

Instructor: Matthew Cooper

Being an effective TA for a laboratory course involves utilization of technical knowledge, hands-on skills, and the ability to interact in a positive way with students. This workshop focuses on the challenges and strategies for serving as TA of a laboratory course in the COE at NC State. Among the topics discussed are maintaining an efficient laboratory work environment, and dealing with common laboratory/student problems. Since the active learning environment of the laboratory is different from the more passive learning environment of most lecture courses, strategies for engaging students to participate in a meaningful way in the laboratory setting will be discussed.

Instructor: Jason King

Grading is a teaching technique used to provide feedback so that students can better understand course materials and identify the concerns they should address in future work. Therefore, grading must be completed in a timely manner so that students have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and improve. In addition, grading criteria must be applied consistently across all student submissions to accurately reflect the quality of student work. This breakout session will introduce tools and techniques for facilitating consistent grading with the goal of providing timely feedback for students.

Instructor: Vanessa Doriott Anderson

Congratulations, you have a teaching assignment! But now what? In this breakout session, we will explore strategies for making your first day in the classroom a success, from establishing rapport with your students, to defining goals and outcomes, to planning your first lesson.

 

Instructor: Rhonda Sutton

Managing the classroom environment can be one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. This session is designed to provide you tips on managing some common classroom management issues and concerns, such as creating a welcoming environment, establishing guidelines and expectations, maintaining professionalism, and handling disruptions in the classroom.

Instructors: Christopher Beeson

Did you use a Learning Management System (LMS) in your undergraduate program such as Blackboard or Canvas? Is the idea of any online coursework a new concept for you? Will you be assisting in teaching a course in Moodle? In this session we will showcase the main tools and functionality of Moodle, including finding your course, working with assignments and posting to forums!

Instructor: Jason King

Description to be announced.

 

Instructor: Sarah Heckman

We’ve all had teachers who inspired us and helped us grow and learn in a field. We’ve also had teachers who haven’t. So how do you know which type of teacher you are? How can you improve your teaching? This breakout session will explore ways to improve your teaching through feedback- both from colleagues and students. We’ll explore what peer and student evaluations look like and identify constructive ways to critique a class.

 

Instructor: Miriam Ferzli

In this workshop you will learn how to budget your time, establish ground rules, create a positive classroom climate, and foster group work and discussion in the laboratory setting. Participants will identify various challenges of teaching in the laboratory through a collaborative and active learning activity. Participants will also discuss issues relating to managing the lab environment by working through various case studies.