Making My Teaching Better with Undergrad TAs
Inviting Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (UTAs) to assist in a course can help lighten the teaching workload and improve teaching quality, and mentoring them can be highly rewarding in itself. This session will cover the benefits of teaching with an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant. Dr. Crane will share from his experience working with UTAs for over 10 years of teaching across several different courses in the Department of English. He will also share different strategies and tactics for helping UTAs gain the most from the experience while drawing on them to make the course better. These strategies include training UTAs to give student feedback, to prepare lessons, and to respond to student complaints; coordinating the work of multiple UTAs in one section; and developing and mentoring the UTAs in their own professional goals.
Presenters
Christopher “Chip” Crane is a Principal Lecturer in the Department of English. He has taught literature and professional writing at the University of Maryland since 2010. Chip holds a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the Catholic University of America, where he also received a certificate in Rhetoric studies. He received an M.A. in Teaching Writing and Literature from George Mason University. His research interests include the intersection of rhetoric and comedy, translation and identity in Anglo-Saxon through seventeenth-century English literature, Tolkien, young adult fantasy, and medievalism in pop culture. Chip also works as a consultant for technical and business communication, leadership, and team building.