GSI

Acknowledging the Work of Outstanding GSIs

Teaching in Berkeley’s academic departments as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) is an invaluable professional development opportunity. Being recognized as one of the University’s finest is an outstanding achievement.

GSI Teaching & Resource Center logo

Workshop on Teaching for GSIs

The GSI Center’s Workshops on Teaching for GSIs cover a wide variety of topics related to university teaching and the GSI experience.

NEW! Academic Innovation Studio (AIS) open to GSIs and GSRs

Academic Innovation Studio (AIS) is new a place where Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Researchers can receive support and find inspiration for teaching and learning, and research tools on campus. Consultation, workshops, showcases, meetups, seminars and more are held regularly. … Continued

Spring Teaching Workshops for GSIs

        The GSI Center’s Workshops on Teaching for GSIs 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 … Continued

2014 Teaching Effectiveness Award Recipients.

GSIs and Faculty Win Awards for Teaching and Mentorship

In recognition of the excellence of Graduate Student Instructors’ in teaching undergraduates, as well as the outstanding work of faculty members who mentor those GSIs, the GSI Teaching & Resource Center held three award ceremonies this spring.

Workshops for GSIs

The following workshops, sponsored by the GSI Teaching & Resource Center, fulfill requirements of the Center’s Certificate of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Supporting Student Inclusion and Well-Being October 21, 2013, 3-4:30 pm 110 Sproul Hall Syllabus and Course Design November 5, … Continued

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.

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.

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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 … Continued

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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 … Continued

images from 2011 ogsi awards event

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.

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.

OGSI winner celebrating

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 … Continued

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.

Photo of Ellie Schindelman

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.

Sarlo and FMA Winners from 2009

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 … Continued

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.