SPH Students Advance Undergraduate Teaching Through University Resources

Students in the School of Public Health have been seeking out support from the university to develop their ability to teach others.

Meet Kate and Kate of Family Science.

Kate Speirs and Kate Riera are both third-year doctoral students who obtained a yearlong grant from the university's Center for Teaching Excellence for creating a Peer Teaching Support Program. The grant funds monthly meetings for Family Science graduate students who are interested in developing their skills at the front of a classroom.

"We also wanted to have a forum where graduate students could begin to think about teaching before they started to teach," said Speirs.

As teaching assistants themselves, Kate and Kate recognized the benefits of collaborating with fellow TAs and sharing their experiences. The program provides an outlet to talk about problems or issues that are encountered in the classroom. In the past, participants have discussed teaching portfolios, writing objectives and university policies and procedures.

The group has benefited 15 doctoral students so far since it began last spring, and Kate and Kate will manage the program throughout this semester as well. On tap for this month's discussion: grading and student assessment.

"Grading is a fundamental part of teaching, yet it can be hard to know how to do it well. We will be sharing rubrics and other grading strategies," explained Speirs.

Also benefiting from the university's Center for Teaching Excellence is Vora Kranti, second-year international graduate student, also of Family Science.

Vora, who is originally from India, is one of seven students on campus chosen to receive the International Teaching Fellowship this year.

Vora will commit 20 hours a semester to meeting with the other fellows and a faculty mentor to help develop her teaching skills. At the end of the program, she will have produced a portfolio that includes a worksheet, a journal of her teaching experiences and a personal teaching philosophy. At the conclusion of the fellowship, Vora will also receive a $500 stipend.

One of the most interesting twists is that Vora will be paired with a mentor outside of her own department, a feature of the program that she is looking forward to. "It would be useful to be connected to a different department and know a different teaching perspective. Each department has a distinct teaching style and way of functioning," Vora said.

She plans to use the fellowship opportunity to explore the strategy of effectiveness of using public health professionals as guest speakers in the classroom, as well as field trips to government and development agencies in D.C.

To find out more about the opportunities provided by the university's Center for Teaching Excellence, opportunities that you, too, could benefit from, click here.