Institution-wide GTA training
It is a good idea to make new GTAs aware of their opportunities for formal training and professional development within and beyond the Subject.
You can read more about the differences between these three training and development opportunities below
Statutory training: Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education
LEADS offers the three-hour statutory training session Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. It is a requirement that all GTAs, Tutors and Lab demonstrators complete this training. The session covers general aspects of teaching in Higher Education across all four Colleges.
Associate Fellowship of RET: Developing as a Teacher in Higher Education
The course Developing as a Teacher in Higher Education (DAT-HE) is designed for GTAs. The course runs over a semester and consists of four core sessions as well as six optional sessions. To complete the course, course participants must attend eight sessions in total. One of the core sessions is about assessment and feedback. The session encourages GTAs to reflect on the purposes of feedback and assessment and to familiarise themselves with various approaches to giving effective feedback. As the session is designed for GTAs from across the four Colleges, it doesn’t discuss specificities of marking within the Subjects.
The course is aligned to the UK Professional Standards Framework. On successful completion of the course, the participant will be awarded Associate Fellowship of Recognising Excellence in Teaching by the University.
DAT-HE ran for the first time in spring 2018 and the course evaluation was overwhelmingly positive:
When asked how likely the participants were to recommend the DAT-HE to a friend, 95.6% responded that they were likely, or highly likely to do so.
83% of the participants said that they had changed elements of their work at the University as a result of the DAT HE course.
Continuing Professional Development workshops
Every year, a series of continuing professional development sessions are offered to all staff at the University (GTAs included). Staff can attend a large number of sessions, which cover five main themes (in autumn 2018, 56 sessions are offered). One of these themes is assessment and feedback and the sessions range from topics such as assessment design and peer review tools to constructive feedback and developing feedback literacy. Not all sessions are immediately relevant to GTA duties but might nonetheless be useful for their continuing professional development.