Batterton Berit E, Neill C Melman, Biggs Christopher R, Rempel Hannah S
The University of Texas at Austin, Marine Science Institute, Port Aransas, Texas, USA.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2024 Dec 12;25(3):e0012524. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.00125-24. Epub 2024 Oct 30.
While graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) contribute significantly to university education, many graduate programs across diverse disciplines offer limited formal pedagogical training. In turn, many researchers informally develop teaching and mentoring skills as they advance to faculty positions or related careers. This can perpetuate a lag in the implementation of inclusive educational environments despite the clear benefits demonstrated by recent pedagogical research. For instance, the integration of inclusive teaching strategies like universal design for learning, growth mindset feedback, and the use of relatable role models in curricula may help increase the persistence, success, and self-efficacy of traditionally underrepresented groups in the sciences. Additionally, research indicates that training graduate TAs in evidence-based practices may have benefits beyond teaching efficacy, such as greater confidence in research preparedness and science communication-skills applicable to any scientific field or career path. Here, we developed and implemented an inclusive teaching series for a marine science department that included: (i) campus-wide pedagogical journal article discussions and knowledge-sharing, (ii) expert-led interactive workshops on evidence-based teaching strategies, and (iii) a graduate TA professional development module on inclusive lesson planning with opportunities to teach and receive feedback. Based on our experiences, we share a framework and resources to facilitate a broader adoption of formalized TA training in inclusive teaching practices within graduate programs across a variety of fields.
虽然研究生助教对大学教育做出了重大贡献，但不同学科的许多研究生项目提供的正规教学培训有限。相应地，许多研究人员在晋升为教师或从事相关职业的过程中，会非正式地培养教学和指导技能。尽管最近的教学研究已证明了包容性教育环境的明显益处，但这可能会使包容性教育环境的实施滞后现象长期存在。例如，将诸如通用学习设计、成长型思维反馈以及在课程中使用相关榜样等包容性教学策略整合起来，可能有助于提高传统上在科学领域代表性不足群体的坚持度、成功率和自我效能感。此外，研究表明，对研究生助教进行基于证据的实践培训可能带来超出教学效果的益处，比如对研究准备和适用于任何科学领域或职业道路的科学沟通技能更有信心。在此，我们为一个海洋科学系开发并实施了一个包容性教学系列，包括：（i）全校范围的教学期刊文章讨论和知识共享，（ii）由专家主导的关于基于证据的教学策略的互动研讨会，以及（iii）一个研究生助教专业发展模块，内容是关于包容性课程规划，并有教学和获得反馈的机会。基于我们的经验，我们分享一个框架和资源，以促进在各个领域的研究生项目中更广泛地采用正规的助教培训，使其纳入包容性教学实践。
