Psychology Graduate Student Teaching Opportunities

Data indicate that between one-third and one-half of our graduate students pursue academic careers that involve some combination of research and teaching. Psychology is one of the leading research-oriented Departments at the University of Connecticut, which, in turn, is a leading research institution both nationally and internationally. Along with research, we place a strong premium on quality teaching and in preparing our graduate students for careers that, in many cases, will involve teaching in academic settings. Accordingly we provide our graduate students with teaching training and opportunities that include the following:

Instructional Training Opportunities in the Department of Psychology:

Intensive 1-to-2-day-long training for all Teaching Assistants (TAs) the week before the opening of the Fall semester.
Additional weekly training sessions for TAs teaching laboratory and/or discussion sections.
Departmental workshops on teaching with technology.
One-on-one mentoring of graduate "instructors-of-record" by outstanding professors.
Beginning in the Spring of 2003, a formal teaching skills course will be offered by one of our award-winning professors for advanced graduate students who will soon be seeking academic positions. In this course, students will be formally evaluated for their organization, content, and other pedagogical attributes.

Instructional Training Opportunities by the University:

Workshops by the University's Institute for Teaching and Learning (IT&L) on teaching skills and techniques (e.g., technology; teaching portfolio construction; use of humor in the classroom; course web page construction; grading; teaching in large classrooms). ITL also provides a variety of support services for facilitating and improving teaching.

Teaching Opportunities in the Department of Psychology:

Extensive and varied teaching experiences typically follow a progression from initial assignment to General Psychology I. laboratory sections to "instructor of record" for upper-division undergraduate courses. These opportunities are shown in the following table:

Teaching Opportunity	Description	Approximate Number of TAs per Year
General Psychology I. Lab TA (PSYC 132)	Conduct two weekly 1-hr lab sections for the first course of the general psychology 2-course sequence. Labs are computer-based and involve simple experiments and demonstrations. TAs gain experience in instructing students to collect data and write research reports, as well as administer quizzes and a lab final. A few TAs who have taught non-honors sections of 132 are assigned to special honors sections.	56
General Psychology II Discussion TA (PSYC 135)	Lead undergraduate in weekly 1-hr discussion of topics covered in the second course of the general psychology 2-course sequence. A few TAs who have taught non-honors sections of 135 are assigned to special honors sections.	28
Research Methods in Psychology Lab TA (PSYC 202Q)	Conduct 2-hr weekly labs for the psychology research methods course. Students design experiments, collect and analyze data, and prepare research. Working in small research teams, students also design, execute, and analyze their own experiments, and present their data at a highly successful poster session near the end of the semester.	20
Upper-division Lab TA	TAs conduct laboratories in upper-division courses in the areas of Sensation and Perception, Social Psychology, Cognition, Animal Behavior & Learning, Personality, Psycholinguistics, Developmental Psychology, and Physiological Psychology.	6
Upper-division Undergraduate Course	TAs who have performed well in the above sequence (132, 135, 202Q) may be afforded the opportunity to be the "instructor-of-record" for an entire upper-division course. Such courses have included Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Study of Personality, Abnormal Psychology, and Learning.	14
Research Supervision	Graduate students are often responsible for supervising undergraduates in one-on-one research projects under the course numbers PSYC 297 (Undergraduate Research), PSYC 299 (Independent Study), and PSYC 296 (Honors Thesis). Graduate students typically work with their faculty research mentors in supervising such undergraduate research experience.	90
Grading Assistants (GAs)	Many of our large-enrollment undergraduate courses (e.g., PSYC 132, 135) have GAs assigned to professors. GA duties include exam construction, grading, and meeting with undergraduates seeking extra assistance.	20

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