Tips for New Teaching Assistants

This story originally appeared on Inside Higher Ed on Aug. 28, 2015

by Julie Dodd

This time each year, at universities like mine, hundreds of new teaching assistants prepare to teach undergraduates for the first time.

I’ve presented to the TAs at the University of Florida for a decade now, and each year, I’m reminded both how much undergraduate teaching they provide and how important it is that we, as faculty members, provide help to new teaching assistants (and to new faculty) who may join the academy with a limited (or no) teaching background.

Here are three principles that underscored my presentation to the graduate students this year, in hopes that they will be helpful to new teachers elsewhere.

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