Teaching assistants are a highly valued part of Academic Programs in our department. Classroom and on-line teaching in entomology and in forensic and investigative sciences courses carry high expectations for defining and communicating learning outcomes, lesson relevance, demonstrations and assessment, as well as providing mentorship and guidance for undergraduate student discovery.
Graduate students are encouraged to discuss their interests in service as a teaching assistant with their major advisor and with the faculty-of-record for the respective ENTO or FIVS courses well in advance of the call for teaching assistantship applications.
Instructor requests for teaching assistants will be communicated by email to the associate head for academic programs.
Participation in the department teaching program can be fulfilled in two ways:
- Paid Graduate Teaching Assistantship
- Half-time assistantship = 20 hours per week (depending on size of assignment)
- Quarter-time assistantship = 10 hours per week (depending on size of assignment)
- Graduate Student enrolled in ENTO 685: Directed Studies under faculty direction
- For this option, students are supervised by a faculty member and assist in developing and/or implementing a new course, new teaching techniques or other teaching related activities of merit.
The associate department head for academic programs is responsible for coordinating and supervising this program, for conducting departmental teaching assistant training before the beginning of each regular long semester, and for reporting data and trend analyses to the department, education committee and faculty.
Steps Associated with Application, Compliance, Evaluation and Selection
Program Notes and Additional Consideration
- As part of university outcome assessment, each teaching assistantship will be evaluated by the instructor of record for the course(s) they are assigned. Results of this assessment will be reported through the associate department head for academic programs, to the graduate operations committee and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences on an annual basis, as requested.
- Assessment of teaching assistant performance will be scored for preparedness, resourcefulness, timeliness, professional demeanor and student engagement (scale 0-5, with 0 low, 5 high, and score of 3 being neutral). This rubric will be reviewed each semester during the department’s teaching assistant orientation and workshop.
- A report of each application cycle data set will be made to the education committee for tracking and trend analysis. A report of findings will be made at the department faculty meeting.