Post by Gemma Gibson, the GTA Coordinator for Multidisciplinary Engineering Education, and Sarah Plumb, Academic Development Adviser in the Academic Practice and Skills Development (APSD) team
In Multidisciplinary Engineering Education (MEE) over 200 Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play an essential role by contributing to the running of labs and helping to provide students with a great experience through the teaching they support. MEE is a supportive and rewarding place to work, where contributions are recognised, career development is encouraged and staff are made to feel valued. We want this ethos to apply to our GTAs and to professionalise their role and the professional development opportunities available.
The MEE GTA Awards were introduced as a way of recognising exceptional GTA work across a wide range of categories including Teaching Innovation, Creating a Positive Learning Environment, Outstanding Teaching Delivery and Digital Innovation, reflecting the full range of skills demonstrated by GTAs.
In addition to GTA Awards, HEA recognition is an integral pathway to career development. All HEA fellowships can be used to support job and promotion applications across the Higher Education (HE) sector, and the scheme is recognised internationally. To promote this to GTAs in a timely manner, both new and returning MEE GTAs are given a brief introduction to the HEA fellowship scheme during their Induction. From here, GTAs are also signposted to the Elevate Foundation Pathway and Personal Pathway Explorer workshops as an induction to the schemes and their requirements. They are also able to attend Write On Workshops which are writing retreats where Elevate advisers are on hand to answer questions or give feedback.
STA (Sheffield Teaching Assistant) workshops are a further part of offer to GTAs to help them gain skills and confidence and as a means for reflective learning. Specific workshops to support Global Engineering Challenge (GEC) and Engineering You’re Hired (EYH) weeks. These workshops have been tailored to these events to prepare GTAs for the work they will be doing during these weeks to support students.
Work is being done to standardise support for GTAs across the institution, with the creation of a GTA Developer’s Network which includes members from 20 different departments to share good practice. The network has three areas of focus: recruitment, induction and management; training and support; and recognition and career development. Preexisting examples of department based best practice will be used as the basis for developing subject specific pedagogical support and training for their GTAs.
Alongside the support that is provided to GTAs by the staff, we also have frequent networking events. These events are designed to encourage GTAs to connect and provide an opportunity for them to forge supportive relationships with one another. While staff are always there to answer questions and provide guidance, we recognise that a network of peers can be much more beneficial to their development, so this is what we are aiming to create.
If you work with GTAs and are interested in finding out more about the support and developmental opportunities available to them you can join the Advance HE Connect GTA Developers’ Network (advance-he.ac.uk) which is a special interest group for all staff working in HE. If you work at the University of Sheffield and would be interested in inputting to future initiatives to support GTA professional development in teaching then please contact Gemma Gibson, g.e.gibson@sheffield.ac.uk (MEE) or Sarah Plumb, sarah.plumb@sheffield.ac.uk (Elevate).