Engaging Graduate Students in Educational Development Work
During the past two decades, there has been an increased focus on engaging graduate students as partners in educational development work. Graduate students are engaged with teaching and learning centres in designing or co-designing, facilitating or co-facilitating educational development activities. While this partnership model appears to be gaining momentum, we know little about how Canadian teaching and learning centres involve graduate students in educational development activities. This report summarizes the preliminary findings from our two-stage environmental scan of centre websites across Canadian institutions. We have identified ten Canadian centres that mention graduate students in educational development roles for a deeper review to find information on the following questions:
- How are graduate students recruited in educational development roles?
- Are these roles paid or voluntary?
- Who provides the supervision, training, or mentorship for these roles?
- What is the nature of graduate students’ engagement in educational development work?
- What are the key educational development responsibilities graduate students engage in?
While not all teaching and learning centre websites included all this information, we were able to obtain sufficient data that provides an initial insight into the current practice(s) of engaging graduate student students as partners in educational development activities at Canadian centres.
Recruitment of Graduate Students
In most cases, centres employ graduate students in paid part-time positions while a few recruit graduate students for volunteer educational development roles. Our scan indicated that centres seek a wide range of attributes and qualifications in graduate student applicants. The most common requirement is a proven interest in university teaching as demonstrated by holding a teaching assistant position for more than a year. However, the necessary TA experience varied. Additionally, six institutions indicated a preference for candidates who have prior experience as participants in their teaching development activities and programs.
Programs and Responsibilities
Our environmental scan shows that graduate students’ engagement in educational development activities may be divided into two broad categories. First, there are apprenticeship-style programs that engage graduate students in a broad range of educational development activities. Second, there are programs that engage graduate students in a specific educational development role such as teaching development mentor and facilitator for TAs, teaching assistant for teaching and learning courses, and technology consultant or coach.
Conclusion
Our environmental scan has provided a good starting point for understanding the landscape of graduate student engagement as partners in educational development. We understand the limitation of relying solely on the exploration of websites and acknowledge that a deeper, more nuanced understanding of graduate students’ engagement in educational development work is needed. For this purpose, we are planning a second phase of this project to investigate the current practices and programs through a survey that will also explore the benefits and challenges of engaging graduate students as partners in educational development