Last week I presented several teaching workshops at the Teaching Assistant Institute (TAI) held by our Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). This was part of the mandatory all-day training for first-time teaching assistants at Texas A&M, regardless of major and department. Throughout the day, we discussed How Learning Works, Teaching Strategies, Classroom Management, Effective Communication, Grading and Questioning Techniques. The sessions were designed to be as interactive as possible. There were a lot of group activities, physically moving around in the classroom, scenario discussions, and case studies. This was my first time to facilitate the TAI, and I just realized how much I learned from my students (TAs) during these sessions.
 
As graduate students we are often trapped by our own disciplinary knowledge, and one thing excited about college teaching is the diversity and variety of interests coming from our students. During the TAI, I heard numerous stories about our new TAs’ previous experience in the classroom, good or not-so-good student behaviors, and struggles they had because of the subject content or the classroom environment, as well as the confusions and nervousness they faced (or thought they would face) in a college classroom setting.
 
I have been a TA for two years and have taught my own discussion class for one year before this. Every time I step into my classroom, I still feel that pressure of being the instructor or leader of the class. However, one thing I always keep in mind is that teaching is a process of learning as well. The students look at the TAs as the role model (someone who has been through this and knew exactly how hard it was to go through all these coursework), and they did not expect the TAs to be the perfect expert, knowing everything. The curiosity, excitement, confident and patience you bring to the class – that’s the most important thing that would be very beneficial to your students.
 
As we go into the world of college teaching, I would encourage everyone to share his/her teaching experience with our fellow grad Aggies. You never know how useful and mind-blowing a tip from another discipline could help you with your own class. By this I mean not only teaching strategies or syllabus design, but also the attitude and work-study-life balance that we all (at some point) struggle with.
 
And if you are interested in the future, check out the Graduate Teaching Consultant program at CTE. You can pass on the torch of teaching and be the next generation of instructional coaches or peer mentors for TAs across campus. We are a big family of experienced graduate teaching fellows, and the CTE is a great place to start the initial steps of building our college teaching career.

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Mingqian Liu | Architecture

Mingqian is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Department of Architecture