Building new research on how students learn into the ways they’re taught
If you’re going to teach, knowing how students really learn is an advantage.
The GSI Center’s upcoming Workshops on Teaching
These hands-on, practical workshops cover a wide variety of topics related to teaching and the GSI experience at the university level. They’re presented by the Graduate Division’s GSI Teaching and Resource Center.
Orientations and receptions for new grad students
If you’re new, here’s a list of events in August and September that can help you get to know the Berkeley campus from a variety of perspectives Note: as you visit these pages in the future, look at the calendar in the right-hand column so you can take advantage of the many upcoming workshops, conferences, [...]
GSIs (and their mentors) are central to Berkeley’s teaching mission
Dear Graduate Students, As the spring semester drew to a close, I enjoyed several opportunities to celebrate great teaching by graduate students. At the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award ceremony on the first of May at International House, we acknowledged the excellent work of 276 GSIs, out of the more than three thousand GSIs who [...]
Out of thousands of dedicated GSIs, 276 are named especially outstanding
Their departments nominate them, a GSI-related faculty committee selects them, and colleagues, family, and friends come together to honor them in a commencement-like ceremony. What it all means is that they’re already pretty darn good teachers.
The key to totally surprising a mentor: no leaks
So far, nobody’s let the cat out of the bag, so the surprise has been total in every case. Despite Berkeley’s long tradition of protest and California’s reputation for spontaneity, faculty members here simply don’t expect to be interrupted by outsiders while they’re teaching a class. When it dawns on them that the invasion brings unexpected but happy news for them personally, decorum goes out the window.
March and April teaching and mentoring: an award, workshops, and time to apply for an institute
GSIs: do you have a great mentor? Nominate by March 5. Mentoring award nominations: Nominations closed February 3 for the Graduate Division’s Sarlo Awards and the Graduate Assembly’s Faculty Mentor Awards, but one category remains open until March 5: the Graduate Division’s Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs. Details are available on the GSI [...]
Graduate Division Workshops: Fall 2011
(Several workshops in our fall series have already taken place, but more are coming up, as detailed below.) GROW Workshop September 20 (Tuesday), 2 to 4 p.m., 110 Sproul Hall How to Write an Academic Grant Proposal Registration is required (online, by September 19). Questions? Call 643-9392. Presented by the Graduate Division’s Academic Services Unit. Workshops [...]
The GSI Center’s Workshops on Teaching – Fall 2011
A professional development series for Graduate Student Instructors presented by the Graduate Division’s GSI Teaching & Resource Center, these Workshops on Teaching cover a wide variety of topics related to university teaching and the GSI experience and offer GSIs, and other graduate students interested in teaching, opportunities for hands-on learning and practical discussion about pedagogy. [...]
294 GSIs are celebrated as officially “Outstanding”
Of the many, many GSIs on campus, nearly 300 were singled out as Outstanding Graduate Student Instructors by the Graduate Division’s GSI Center — and 10 GSIs were given special recognition for their innovative solutions to teaching problems.
Faculty who guide grad students are honored, ready or not
The unselfish help of mentors was recently recognized by the Graduate Division, the Sarlo Foundation, and the Graduate Assembly, in a warm gathering and in two friendly ambush-style presentations.
Steps to success, or how the fellowship was won
Sending in all those applications can pay off, and sometimes we hear about it. Case in point: Ph.D. student Vasundhara Sirnate was selected for a $30,000 award. She tells us how that happened.
Outstanding GSIs and their mentors are honored: a quick preview
Outstanding GSIs, and mentors of GSIs, were honored in droves over the past few weeks. We’ll be saying more, in detail and with pictures, in the near future, but meanwhile here are the categories — at least those which fall under the umbrella of the Graduate Division (and, in one case, its partner, the Graduate Assembly).
A springful of workshops on teaching
Here is the the GSI Teaching & Resource Center’s spring schedule of Workshops on Teaching, a professional development series for GSIs. These workshops cover a wide variety of topics related to university teaching and the GSI experience. The purpose of the series is to offer GSIs, and other graduate students interested in teaching, opportunities for [...]
Set the stage for honoring faculty mentors — nominate now!
Every year, the Graduate Division and the Graduate Assembly team up to call public attention to the exemplary and caring assistance individual faculty members have provided to their students.
Teaching Conference, Summer Institute, new magazine, and more — all coming up on campus
The Spring Teaching Conference for all first-time GSIs, A new online magazine, The Public Intellectual issues a call for submissions, Never-before-published photos of the Beatles are on display in North Gate Hall, and Applications open for the Summer Institute for Preparing Future Faculty.
More than 270 GSIs are singled out for the quality of their teaching
276 GSIs from 61 graduate programs were granted this recognition, which is now just over a decade old. The award recognizes the excellence of their teaching. Selections are made according to detailed guidelines, following criteria which may include skills in presenting course materials, capacity to promote critical thinking, and skills in developing course materials that promote learning, as well as evidence such as evaluations by students, letters of nomination by faculty or students, and classroom observation by faculty.
Creative—and effective—solutions win honors for 11 GSIs
The Graduate Division’s Teaching Effectiveness Awards were presented May 13 in the Women’s Faculty Club. The winners identified a teaching/learning problem in their own classes, laboratories, and sections, then came up with a method, strategy, or idea to address the problem, implemented it, measured its effectiveness, and described the process in an essay. Their essays become part of a permanent archive.
Ellie Schindelman
Earlier, the “prize patrol” had (also with GSI connivance) snuck into a computer-lab setting on the third floor of Haviland Hall, where public health lecturer Ellie Schindelman was team-teaching a class on using video for public health leadership and advocacy.
Heaping honors on the highly helpful
The Graduate Division, which oversees graduate education at Berkeley, and the Graduate Assembly, the grad students’ government, are making up for lost time. For decades, the campus did little to reward the vital role many faculty members play as mentors to their students. Countering that non-trend, the two groups have joined forces for the third year in a row, presenting their own faculty honors in a combined ceremony.
Learning to teach, with a little help
The GSI Center: from baby steps to national example BEING A GRADUATE STUDENT INSTRUCTOR is not only a good way to offset the expenses of your graduate education, it’s a heck of a good way to develop your skills and instincts as a teacher, help educate Berkeley’s undergraduates — and get a real jump on [...]
What makes the wheel go around
When I was a graduate student, I was a teaching assistant (more than once) for a very inspiring mentor, a man named Manos Vakalo. His teams of teaching assistants had remarkable autonomy. He never questioned a grade we gave, and he always treated us as respected equals. In retrospect, we could be dumb at times; I remember bringing beer to a critique for our undergraduates, and Manos simply raising an eyebrow in reprimand. That, however, was enough. He had remarkable expressions, every one of which I think I could still imitate perfectly today, nearly 20 years later.
Pulling all-nighters, buying pizza, dressing up as Darwin…
As a GSI for Finance (BA 103) and Managerial Accounting (BA 102B), William “Willy” Wong, MBA ’05, would offer “numerous review sessions and have 12-hour-long office-hour visits,” wrote one of the 37 student who nominated him for heroic status. Another singled out the “large packets of material [he prepared] to help us learn the subject matter, which must have taken him many hours each time” — packets that “if compiled fully, will rival the class textbooks,” said another admirer. When one student was having trouble obtaining internships, Wong gave him advice, then offered to look over his résumé, as he did for several others. And his 24/7 help was nondiscriminating: roughly half of the 37 survey respondents admitted that they were not even enrolled in one of his sections.
