First-Year Activities | Second-Year Activities | Third-Year Activities | Evaluation & Continuation | Voluntary Termination
First-Year Activities
The duties of the GTF recipients during their first semester in the program will be to work with faculty and graduate students from the Department of Engineering Education to teach the workshop sections of one of the first-year courses (ENGE 1024, 1104, or 1114).
These Fellows will be responsible for direction of two 90-minute workshops per week. Training on general classroom protocol and management will be provided before the semester begins, and weekly meetings with the ENGE graduate students supporting the course and faculty coordinating the course will serve both as a time for reflection on the past week and a time for planning for the coming week. Fellows will register for a 1- credit Practicum that will count toward the Graduate Certificate in Engineering Education (ENGE 5504).
In the second semester, Fellows may be given more responsibility in either the first- or second-semester course under the guidance of an Engineering Education faculty member. The weekly meetings with faculty leaders of these ENGE courses will be continued to encourage and develop the ability of the Fellow to practice self-assessment should serve to make the fellows even better learners.
Each Fellow will be supplied with a new laptop computer through the financial resources of the GTF Program so that they can effectively teach and interact with the freshman students who will be under their guidance in the workshops. This laptop will be of similar capability to those purchased by the incoming engineering students. While ownership for the laptop will remain with the University, the Fellow will be allowed to retain possession of the computer until graduation or separation from the GTF Program. Since the computer will be State-owned, all currently licensed software will be available to the Fellows for their use.
During the first year all Fellows will be expected to make progress toward either the Future Professoriate Certificate offered by the Graduate School or the Graduate Certificate in Engineering Education (offered by the Department of Engineering Education) by taking a minimum of 7 credits that will count toward one (or possibly both) of the certificates. One of these credits will be the Practicum course previously described. The other six credits would come from completion of two of the following courses:
- GRAD 5104-Preparing the Future Professoriate
- GRAD 5114-Pedagogical Practices in Contemporary Contexts
- ENGE 5014- Foundations of Engineering Education
Second-Year Activities of the Graduate Teaching Fellows
The second year of the GTF program provides opportunities for the fellow to have major instructional responsibilities for a sophomore- or junior-level course within their home department.
During the fall semester of this second year, the Fellow will co-teach a course with a faculty mentor in their home department, with the Fellow having instructional responsibility for 50% of the overall course material.
The faculty member teaching the remainder of the course would be the logical candidate to serve as the direct mentor of the Fellow during the semester. However, this mentoring could be provided by another member of the faculty. The faculty mentor is expected to have the following responsibilities with the Fellow:
- Attend at least 50% of the lectures delivered by the Fellow in the course during this semester.
- Meet at least once per week during the semester with the Fellow to provide help and guidance related to a variety of issues related to the course-e.g., lecture preparation, homework/project/examination preparation and grading, issues related to student learning, etc.
- Prepare a written summary evaluation of the Fellow’s teaching performance at the end of the semester, and meet with the Fellow to review the evaluation and suggest ways in which instructional effectiveness could be improved.
The faculty member serving as the mentor for the Fellow during this instructional experience should receive appropriate consideration of this activity and level of mentoring responsibility when their instructional assignment is made for that academic year. The mentoring work is expected to be an important commitment of the faculty member serving in this role, and it is not expected that this work would be done as an “overload” on top of the faculty member’s normal teaching responsibilities.
During the spring semester of the second year, the Fellow would have full instructional responsibility for the same course in which he/she had partial responsibility during the fall semester. The Fellow would again have an assigned faculty mentor for the work during the semester, and the mentor would have the following responsibilities:
- Attend at least four lectures given by the Fellow during the semester.
- Meet with the Fellow as requested to review matters related to the overall instruction of the course.
- Prepare a summary teaching evaluation memo at the end of the semester.
Copies of the written summary evaluation memos prepared for the Fellow by the faculty mentor should be provided to the head of the head of the Fellow’s home department.
Third-Year Activities of the Graduate Teaching Fellows
During the third year of the GTF program the Fellow would continue with a one-course-per-semester instructional assignment.
This course assignment could be the same course taught during Year Two of the program, or it could involve instructional responsibilities for all or part of an additional course in the undergraduate curriculum of the home department. If a new course is assigned for this year it is expected that the Fellow would have partial (50%) instructional responsibilities for the new course in the fall semester of teaching the new course, and full course responsibilities in the second semester. This would hopefully avoid unreasonable amounts of time being expended by the Fellow regarding instructional materials preparation for the first semester of involvement in the second course. Such an approach would allow the Fellow to proceed into a second instructional course assignment without having a large, detrimental effect on progress in their research work.
During the first semester of the new course (if assigned) the faculty mentor for that course would mentor the Fellow with the following assigned responsibilities:
- Hold periodic meetings with the Fellow (as requested) to answer questions related to materials preparation for lectures, homework/project assignments, examinations, etc.
- Attend at least three lectures taught by the Fellow during the semester, and provide a summary report with the Fellow at the end of the semester regarding their teaching effectiveness.
During the second semester of the third year of the program the Fellow would be expected to be fully capable of handling all aspects of either course that he or she had been assigned and to teach either during that semester without an assigned faculty mentor. Those who have continued into the third year of the GTF program represent Fellows who now have substantial amount of teaching preparation skills obtained through pursuit of their graduate teaching certificate and through actual instructional responsibilities. The GTF program will be enhanced by having interaction between these more “senior” Fellows and those who are entering the program in their first year. As such Fellows in their third year would be asked to develop a mentoring relationship with one or more of the first-year Fellows in the GTF program. This should help ease the transition of the new Fellows into their instructional responsibilities. At least one or two third-year Fellows would also be asked to serve on the review committee that will review GTF program nominees and select the Fellows who will enter the program in the next academic year.
Evaluation of Performance and Continuation in the GTF Program
Continuation of a GTF position from year one to year two of the program requires successful completion of the following:
- 7 hours of coursework (including the 1-credit Practicum, ENGE 5504 - Practicum in the Engineering Classroom) towards a graduate teaching certificate.
- Successful performance reviews in the instructional assignments completed within the ENGE program. This performance evaluation will be completed by the Head of the Department of Engineering Education in conjunction with the head of the Fellow’s home department
It is the responsibility of the Head of the Department of Engineering Education to provide each Fellow in the first year of their program with a written review of their performance after each semester. Copies of the performance review are to be provided to the head of the Fellow’s home department.
A meeting should be held between the Head of the Department of Engineering Education, the Fellow, and the Fellow’s home department head whenever a Fellow receives a written performance evaluation that is deemed “unsatisfactory performance” or “needs major improvement”. At this meeting, performance improvement expectations will be presented to the Fellow in writing so that the Fellow understands the improvements that must be achieved during the second semester of their first year in the program in order that they may retain full Fellow funding for the second year of their program. A second weak performance evaluation at the end of this second semester could result in loss of the Fellow’s GTF appointment and associated fellowship funding.
Continuation of a GTF position from year two to year three of the program requires evidence of appropriate effort and success regarding the Fellow’s assigned course instruction responsibilities. The student evaluation scores of the Fellow and written mentor evaluation (completed at the end of each semester by the faculty mentor) are to be reviewed by the head of the Fellow’s home department, and a meeting held between the head and the Fellow to review these evaluations. The head would offer suggestions to the Fellow regarding ways of improving teaching effectiveness. If the head has significant concerns after either semester about the performance of the Fellow these should be put in written form and given to the Fellow at the evaluation meeting. The memo must indicate corrective measures the Fellow is to take and performance improvement expectations that are to be achieved in the subsequent semester in order for the Fellow to retain his or her GTF Position.
It is expected that a Fellow would also continue with appropriate coursework in the second and third year of the program so as to complete on or both of the graduate teaching certificate programs previously described.
Voluntary Termination of a GTF Position
A Fellow may decide at the end of any academic semester during their Fellow appointment that they wish to voluntarily resign from the GTF program. Such as resignation should be discussed with the faculty mentor, the Fellow’s dissertation advisor, and ultimately the head of the Fellow’s home department. Resignations from the program are to occur before the end of a semester if they are to take effect at the beginning of the following semester. Fellows are not allowed to resign their position in the middle of an academic semester, because of the obvious negative effects on the students registered in the affected class.