Bio 398T Supervised Teaching in the Life Sciences Fall 2005

Meeting times and locations:

unique 51900 Tuesdays 2:00-3:30 pm WEL 2.312
unique 51905 Tuesdays 4:00-5:30 pm WEL 2.312
The first class meeting will be on Tuesday, September 6.
[additional hours to be scheduled for assignment completion]

Instructors for both sections:
Dr. Ruth Buskirk, rbuskirk@mail.utexas.edu, 471-7793, ESB 118
Dr. Dee Silverthorn, silverthorn@mail.utexas.edu, 471-6560, ESB 201


Course Objectives: Designed for life sciences graduate students during their first year of teaching (although others are welcome), this course is to help students be effective teaching assistants during their graduate careers and to prepare them for independent teaching and presentations later.

The general goals of this 398T course are:
-to develop teaching skills, presentation techniques, awareness of diverse learning styles
-to introduce resources and expectations for teaching science in classes and laboratories
at UT Austin, including resources at the Center for Teaching Excellence
-to provide a forum and network for discussing teaching problems and issues
-to help each participant initiate his/her own teaching portfolio and to help
qualify graduate students for Assistant Instructor status at UT Austin

Course topics include: expectations of TA's, learning styles and teaching styles, active learning techniques, leading discussions, designing exams & writing questions, web courseware and Blackboard, lecturing styles, teaching in the laboratory, assessment techniques, ethics of teaching, evaluating case studies, course and syllabus design, building your teaching portfolio.
Written assignments include: writing and evaluating exam questions; observation & reflection on a lecture class and a laboratory section; individual “microteach” (a brief teaching session to our group), designing a course syllabus, writing a case study, publishing a web page.

Course grade is based on your class participation and completion of assignments (no exams).