Often graduate students have no prior teaching experience when it comes time to lead a class at Rice, explains Aimee Placas, a graduate student in anthropology and chair of the Graduate Student Association Teaching Committee. The GSA's Teaching Workshops for Future and Current Teachers were created to address the issue of lack of experience among graduate-student teachers. But she said that she volunteered to teach because she needed the experience, especially since she is considering pursuing a career in academia.
Graduate students deserve a forum to get that training.
The workshops also provide a sense of community for people who are concerned with the sames issues, Placas added. Members of the GSA Teaching Committee choose the topics, and professors often contact the GSA with seminar topics they want to present, Placas said. The workshops were created in spring 1998, an outshoot of psychology department teaching seminars. Led by professors and administrators at Rice and beyond, the workshops cover diverse topics. The 50-minute sessions held during lunch generally include a presentation, and many of the instructors also allow for discussion among the workshop attendees.