Moving to the front of the class
Engineering doctoral students get a crash course in pedagogy
Graduate students who want to move to the front of the classroom don’t always have the opportunity to learn teaching skills.
For the second year, the Centre for Teaching and Learning Services (CTLS) offers PhD students a course to fill that gap. Participants learn everything from lesson planning to preparing a teaching dossier.
“The course is excellent. It’s really useful,” said Harkirat Kaur Padda, after presenting a 15-minute mini-lecture on software aging to her fellow students.
Padda is in the first teacher training class made up entirely of engineering and computer science (ENCS) students. This term, Dean Nabil Esmail encouraged PhD students in his faculty to take the course.
“I strongly believe that graduate students at the PhD level should have training in teaching methods and theory,” Esmail said. “I would like to see a compulsory course in learning methods for PhD students.”
Nearly 40 students from ENCS took him up on the suggestion. Since the course usually has 35 students, CTLS created a second section of the course just for ENCS on the Sir George Williams Campus in addition to the concurrent regular session at the Loyola Campus.
The SGW course is run by Nancy Acemian, with support from CTLS facilitator Chris Taillefer. Acemian took some training sessions with CTLS during her first term teaching at Concordia nearly five years ago. She’s communicating her own enthusiasm for teaching by giving workshops to faculty, and now, to doctoral students .
Acemian is aware of the challenges of teaching in Engineering, because she teaches there herself.
“The assumption in the sciences is that the student sits there and the professor speaks. We have to untrain students who just sit passively. That’s why working with PhD students is so appealing: They remember what the classroom is like.”
Acemian recognizes that there are limits to being creative with scientific teaching. “It’s hard to encourage a classroom debate in engineering. It’s just not that kind of material.”
Practical exercises, such as mini-lecture preparation, help neophyte teachers link course content with presentation. Students also work with Kate Bligh, of the Theatre Department, to understand the performance element of teaching.
Padda, who is studying computer science, received feedback on everything from the relevancy of her PowerPoint presentation to the appro-priateness of her questions and her body language when interacting with students.
After his presentation, Ashraf Gaffar acknowledged some difficulty with the mini-lecture format. “A three-hour lecture is like a dream for me. Fifteen minutes is the ultimate challenge.”
The program also teaches students how to evaluate students’ work and how to raise ethical issues in the classroom. “We’re reminded that students come from different cultures and backgrounds, and we have to consider all of them,” Padda said.
The course is non-credit, but students who fulfill the requirements for the 25-hour hands-on program are given a certificate upon successful completion.