Teaching Support through the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning
The Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL) offers professional development programs and services for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars primarily focused on teaching and academic careers. DCAL focuses on instructional methods that are inclusive and learner-centered. Workshops allow graduate students and postdocs from disciplines across campus to gather, exchange ideas, and learn from each other in addition to learning from DCAL. DCAL sometimes refer to students and postdocs as “future faculty” although they recognize that students have many career options and may still benefit from these resources even if they do not intend to be a faculty member.
Programs are a mix of in-person or virtual with occasional hybrid options.
DCAL has established a Learning Community for Future Faculty (LCFF) to cultivate a community focused on teaching and learning amongst graduate students and postdocs. The focus of this group is to share the rewards and challenges of college teaching, while digging a bit deeper into best practices and techniques for teaching and related career development issues. The LCFF meets regularly (usually monthly) and the topics and format are chosen by its members. Regular attendance is welcomed yet only coming to the one session you can attend is fine too! If you’d like to be involved, email Cindy Rosalbo.
Given that your first time TAing could be any term and sometimes TA assignments are made close to the start of term, DCAL offer TA programming as a mix of self-paced online, synchronous sessions on Zoom, and in-person events on campus.
Regardless of when or even if you will be a TA, join the self-paced Graduate TA Canvas Site, to experience a series of self-paced activities designed to get you ready for the first day of class, introduce you to new techniques and tools to engage students, and direct you to additional resources to support you throughout your teaching career at Dartmouth and beyond.
DCAL offers TA panels at the start of term and TA sessions during term to discuss questions or concerns of the participants, difficult situations TAs may encounter, and topics relevant to that time in the term. See the workshop sign-ups for grad students and postdocs for details about when and in what format workshops will be offered.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ASSISTANTS
- DCAL Resources such as Teaching Methods and Teaching & Learning Principles as well as Teach Remotely – How to Teach from Anywhere
- The Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies Academic and Conduct Regulations, including the Academic Honor Principle and Sources & Citations, are especially relevant for TAs
- Yale’s website Teaching How-To — while this is Yale-specific, you may find some useful ideas here
- MIT’s The Torch or the Firehose — a humorous and useful look at section teaching
- The Library’s Education & Outreach committee’s Teaching Reflection page
Most academic institutions ask that those who are applying for an assistant professor position should submit a teaching statement/philosophy. If you’re not sure how to articulate your philosophy in a concise essay, come to the Teaching Statement Workshop Series. If you have a statement you’re working on, please suggest we offer the workshop or make an appointment with Cindy Rosalbo.
The Teaching Statement Workshop is part of a larger Future Faculty Academic Job Search Series offered through the Guarini Career Office.
In this workshop series, graduate students and postdocs are introduced to educational literature, basic elements of course design, and different instructional methods. Participants also have a chance to practice teaching and to evaluate teaching by others. Participants are expected to attend all sessions and do work on Canvas between sessions.
Those who attend all the sessions have the option to receive a certificate of completion.
This series is offered at least two times per year and has been offered regularly since 2008. 100% of participants who completed the post-workshop survey said they would recommend the series to a peer. Recent participants commented:
“I learned a lot and I’m excited for a chance to put these new skills into practice.”
“This was well-taught and I learned a lot of things I will be using in my own teaching. I feel more confident not only in my own teaching but also helping others to be more effective.”
“As always, your series and workshops are SUPER helpful!”
“I thought it was a great series and really enjoyed all of the topics! Cindy was a fabulous teacher and model a lot of good things to think about!”
“Great course, excellent instructor. It has already changed the way I teach and proved effective.”
“I really like this course for chance to work with different people, people not from my field.”
“I was very pleased with the structure and the activities within this course.”
“[Cindy] was able to engage all of us in the remote meeting as well as to transmit her motivation and knowledge about teaching and learning. She made these topics very interesting and I think all the class enjoyed every meeting.”
This 3-part series focuses on learning objectives, assessment methods, and creating a complete course syllabus. You should come with a specific course in mind. We will work through steps to help you get to the goal of bringing the draft of a syllabus for your class to the last session to share with the other participants and get feedback. This is different from DCAL’s course design sessions for people working on Dartmouth courses, which is more in-depth. The goal here is really to have a syllabus for the job market. Priority will be given to people who have completed DCAL’s Future Faculty Teaching Series. We meet 3-4 times depending on the number of participants.
