Mentorship of Graduate Teaching Assistants: Effects on instruction and a space for preparing to teach adults

Abstract

This article considers my mentoring of graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs) as they worked with me to teach a graduate seminar. I sought their input to improve instruction in a course students consistently described as highly rigorous. To understand how I provided mentorship, I look at the work we did together to plan and teach the course and at the TAs' response to our work. This work differs from most literature on TAs as it focuses on the collaborative aspect of teaching and the intricacies of providing mentorship. Data include qualitative sources drawn from course materials and journaling, the TAs' reflections, and qualitative and quantitative student evaluations. Findings reveal that students still found course demands to be quite high. Additionally, the TAs needed more feedback on their teaching and to be made more visible to the students as sources of support. Implications explore the particular value of using TAs in colleges of education and suggest how best to integrate their input.

Keywords:

• graduate teaching assistants
• early childhood education
• mentoring
• co-teaching