Assisting in Courses All master's and doctoral graduate students must serve as teaching assistants for either GENE 3000 or GENE 3200 for at least one semester of their graduate tenure, regardless of the nature of their financial support. Guidelines for TAs are found here. Students are encouraged to fulfill this teaching requirement as soon as possible in their graduate career. While this often is done during the second year, the departmental teaching needs vary from year-to-year and students will be informed of their teaching assignments by the Graduate Coordinator. Why put effort toward teaching? It can make you a better researcher! All departments must conform to the following guidelines to prepare graduate students, including laboratory assistants, who will have instructional responsibilities. All new GTAs (graduate teaching assistants) and GLAs (graduate laboratory assistants) must attend the university-wide orientation for Graduate Assistants held before the beginning of fall semester classes. GTAs and GLAs who have no prior teaching experience at the college level must enroll in GRSC 7770 (typically 1 credit hour) before or during the first semester in which they teach. International students who complete LLED 7769 satisfy the GRSC 7770 requirement. International GTAs and GLAs whose native language is not English (i.e., those required to take the TOEFL) are required to take the TAST (TOEFL Academic Speaking Test), before being considered for a teaching assignment. Students scoring 26 or higher on the TOEFL iBT speaking score, or 7.5 or above on the IELTS, may be assigned teaching assignments after fulfilling conditions 1 and 2 above. Students scoring below these values must enroll in one or more language and cultural orientation courses and may need to retake the TOEFL iBT, depending upon their score, before being given teaching or laboratory assistantships. For more information see TA Policy. back to Miscellaneous
