PROCEEDINGS OF THE 19TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2016
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Supporting institutional change: A two-pronged approach related to graduate teaching assistant professional development
Page: 729
Graduate students teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for teaching a large percentage of undergraduate mathematics courses and many of them will go on to careers as educators. However, they often receive minimal training for their teaching responsibilities, and as a result often are not successful as teachers. In response, there is increased national interest in improving the way mathematics departments prepare their GTAs. In this report, we share the initial phases of joint work aimed at supporting institutions in developing or improving a GTA professional development (PD) program. We report on findings from analyses of a baseline survey designed to provide insights into the characteristics of current GTA PD programs in terms of their content, format and duration. Results indicate that there are many institutions seeking improvements to their GTA PD program, and that their needs are in line with the change strategies that the joint projects are employing.