Accessibility statement

7. Continuing professional development for GTAs

Principle: GTAs should receive formal and informal feedback on their performance, and support for their continuing professional development.

67. In line with the University’s model for GTAs, GTAs should have access to a range of support for their continuing professional development, including specialist training, feedback on their performance, and facilitated reflection.

68. All PGRs and GTA Coordinators will be enrolled on a GTA Community site on Yorkshare Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The site is intended to serve as a portal linking to information and resources on professional development and training for GTAs, departmental support, recruitment and employment issues, and additional support offered by the Graduate Student Association (GSA). It includes a restricted GTA Coordinators area for administrative and policy support. All other staff can optionally self-enrol on the site and request access to the GTA Coordinators area once enrolled.

Departmental support and training for GTAs

69. GTAs should be integrated into the department’s Peer Support for Teaching (PST) scheme. The emphasis of the PST scheme should be on the provision of constructive written and/or oral feedback. The PST scheme may include additional observations of GTA teaching by academic staff or fellow GTAs, GTAs observing and/or shadowing academic staff, mentor/buddy schemes (linking novice and experienced GTAs), opportunities for GTAs to share and review teaching and assessment materials or feedback on student work, and supporting informal GTA groups (eg action learning sets, a journal club, an online community of practice) etc. 

70. Departments are encouraged to provide training to support the continuing professional development of their GTAs, particularly to address needs identified by their GTAs or students (eg from module evaluation forms), or relating to discipline-specific practices.

Central training for GTA continuing professional development

71. GTAs (and PGRs who are not offered or able to take up a GTA position) are encouraged to access training, support and professional development offered for GTAs by the University at no cost as part of the institution’s commitment to PGR/GTA professional development.

72. GTAs who are contemplating a career in academia should consider applying for the York Learning and Teaching Award (YLTA) and/or engaging with York Professional and Academic Development scheme (YPAD), both of which enable GTAs to secure transferable recognition for the work they do. Successful completion of the YLTA programme gives GTAs Masters level credit and HEA Associate Fellowship. YPAD provides a mechanism by which individuals can critically explore ways to improve their teaching and support for student learning, while providing an opportunity to secure HEA fellowship at an appropriate level.

Feedback to GTAs on their performance for continuing professional development

73. Departments should ensure that GTAs receive feedback on their performance. This feedback may come from observation (see above), evaluation forms (see below), directly from students (see below), and from other forms of monitoring (eg moderation or double marking of a GTA’s marking and feedback). Feedback should be prompt to enable GTAs to adjust their approach, if this is necessary, as soon as possible.  

74. Departments should ensure that GTAs are encouraged to reflect upon the feedback they receive and identify how they might improve their performance. To facilitate this reflection, GTAs should have the opportunity to discuss the feedback with a member of the academic staff other than their research supervisor (for example the GTA Coordinator, relevant module leader etc.). The academic member of staff should, where applicable, point the GTA towards relevant development opportunities, eg additional training, pedagogic literature, peer observation/shadowing of academic staff. 

Evaluation forms

75. Evaluation forms issued to students (typically module evaluation forms) should enable students to comment on the performance of GTAs and this information should be shared with GTAs and discussed at relevant departmental committees. 

76. Where GTAs play a significant role in supporting students (eg as seminar leaders or laboratory demonstrators) the format of evaluation forms should enable feedback to be directed to individual GTAs (ie forms should ask students to select, or invite them to name, the GTA(s) that they have interacted with). Feedback on individual GTAs should be anonymised before discussion in departmental committees. If performance issues or development needs are identified (either for an individual GTA or a group of GTAs), the GTA Coordinator is responsible for ensuring that these are addressed (see section on Managing GTA Performance).  

Direct feedback from students

77. GTAs who interact directly with students should be encouraged to elicit immediate informal feedback from those students (eg at the end of each session). GTAs may need training to help them identify suitable methods for obtaining such feedback.

Career development for GTAs

Recording of training courses

78. GTA training courses (including the Introduction to Learning and Teaching) offered by the University are recorded in SkillsForge which means that PGRs can produce a record of the training that they have undertaken to share with future employers. Departments should ensure that any in-house GTA training courses are also recorded in SkillsForge so a PGR’s GTA training record is complete. Where a department offers a comprehensive, structured training course it should consider whether it might issue certificates of completion.  

References

79. A GTA should be able to seek a reference from a member of staff (this might be a module leader or the department’s GTA Coordinator) who can comment with authority on the GTA’s work in supporting student learning.