DE Special Projects Editor

SIUC departments will now be required to ensure graduate teaching assistants go through a uniform training program in an effort to improve quality of general education instruction, the director of core curriculum says.

Ann Morey, SIUC Core Curriculum director, said as part of the new general education course program, the University is creating an across-the-board training program to ensure consistency among teaching assistants.

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We never had a policy that asked departments to do TA (teaching assistants) training. she said. Most departments were interested in improving on their own. This is an important step in improving the quality at this University.

It is Illinois law that public schools and colleges train teaching assistants in the areas of sexual harassment, multi-cultural awareness, research integrity and information literacy.

Morey said some departments offer or demand teaching assistant training. But she also noted that some do not offer any training at all.

As a part of the new Core Curriculum, the University Core Curriculum Executive Council and University Core Curriculum, recommended teaching assistants, whose departments do not offer this training, attend workshops offered through the Graduate School.

A teaching assistant may attend his or her department’s workshop only if the department proves that its training program reciprocates that of the graduate school, Morey said.

Mara Rutten, a graduate teaching assistant in history, said the History Department teaching assistants go through the training conducted by the graduate school.

She said the training is administered in the format of workshops and guest speakers.

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Rutten said the training helps teaching assistants develop different ways to teach and how to deal with sexual harassment, multicultural awareness, research misconduct and information literacy.

The things in the workshops are very useful, she said.

Paul LeBlanc, teaching assistant in speech communications, said the Speech Communications Department administers its own training.

LeBlanc said the training is mostly taught by the faculty within the department. He said though he has had three years teaching experience and has had much of this training before, he still finds it useful.

LeBlanc said some departments teach specific ways in which they want classes taught. In that aspect, he said it is very helpful.

The training may be more useful to someone who has not taught before, he said. But I still found that the training taught many useful things.

Morey said the council also strongly recommends each department conduct training that is specific to each individual department.

The council, as part of an improved teaching assistant training program, expects that each department monitor assistants throughout their teaching contract.

Mark Terry, GPSC vice-president for academic affairs, said the council supported the recommendations because it believed there should be a strong foundation in the training of teaching assistants.

We signed on to the concept that this training is important in the process of making teaching assistants more prepared for the classroom, he said. Though this is only one element of the new core curriculum, it is a very important element.