Workshops April
All MSU Teaching Assistants are invited to participate in the following campus-wide workshops sponsored by the Graduate School, MSU's TA Programs. We invite suggestions for future workshops. This listing will be updated continually. PLEASE NOTE: the individual workshops below are arranged by date; however, we will include notifications of other MSU workshop series and development opportunities available to graduate students that are not included in the dated list. Please compare the dates on the Series Announcement(s).
Registration Information
TA Program Workshops, contact kmj@msu.edu. Please include your name, department, and list of the workshop(s) you wish to attend.
Graduate School Workshops, register through gradwrsp@msu.edu. Please contact me with any questions you have about these programs or with recommendations for future offerings. For other information for graduate students, please visit the MSU Graduate School website.
Warmest Regards,
Kevin M. Johnston
Director, MSU TA Programs
Teaching Assistant Programs
Responsible Conduct of Research
PhD Career and Professional Development Workshop Series
ITA Orientation
Summer English Program
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Workshops
April 3, 2009
Fine-Tuning Your Accent III
Presentor: Zeynep Altinsel
Location: Room 201 International Center
Time: 5:00 - 6:30 P.M.
This workshop is designed for graduate assistants and postdocs who are interested in improving their English pronunciation. The third of a series of workshops this spring, Fine-Tuning Your Accent III will focus on stress and intonation in North American English. American undergraduates in the Speech Science department will facilitate small group activities. Altinsel will also provide materials for participants' self study.
Please send the following information to register at teamprog@msu.edu:
- Name
- Department
- First Language
- Departmental appointment/job (teaching, office hours, grading, research...)
- Number of Years in the U. S
- Have you had English instruction in the U. S?
April 4, 2009
Planning, managing, and funding the research project
Location: TBD
Time: TBD
Topics covered: grant writing, budgets, managing personnel, finding funding, writing proposals, project management: an all day practical session where by the end of the day they will have a working plan for a project, including possible funding sources, an outline of a budget, contacts.
April 8, 2009
Fine-Tuning Your Accent III
Presentor: Zeynep Altinsel
Location: Room 303 International Center
5:00 - 6:30 P.M.
This workshop is designed for graduate assistants and postdocs who are interested in improving their English pronunciation. The third of a series of workshops this spring, Fine-Tuning Your Accent III will focus on stress and intonation in North American English. American undergraduates in the Speech Science department will facilitate small group activities. Altinsel will also provide materials for participants' self study.
Please send the following information to register at teamprog@msu.edu:
- Name
- Department
- First Language
- Departmental appointment/job (teaching, office hours, grading, research...)
- Number of Years in the U. S
- Have you had English instruction in the U. S?
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Workshop originally scheduled for April 9 is now scheduled for April 16
Discussions that Work: Engaging Students, and Getting Them to Engage One Another
Location: International Center Spartan Room C
Time: 5-6:30 pm
This workshop fulfils the MSU CCTP competency: Adult Students as Learners/Creating Learning Environments
Discussions “work” when we facilitate well through questioning. Careful planning, clear goal setting, and adept facilitation can turn a hum-drum recitation into an authentic learning experience, transform “tennis-ball” exchanges into Socratic explorations, and foster our students’ further inquiry and interest. But becoming an artful, provocative, and productive questioner is difficult. Fortunately, it’s also a teaching competency that we can improve right away. Workshop attendees will work through some of their most pressing disciplinary questions, transforming them into means for spurring students’ increased participation. They’ll also leave with guidelines for employing sophisticated questioning techniques and useful recommendations for designing and facilitating group work. To ensure that we can create workable cooperative-learning groups, workshop participation is limited to 35.
April 23, 2009
Handling Classroom Incivility
Location: International Center Spartan Room C
Time: 5-6:30 pm
This workshop fulfils the MSU CCTP competency: Professional Development/Understanding the University; Adult Students as Learners/Creating Learning Environments
Are students misbehaving more often? Or, are we more attuned to what we perceive as classroom conflict? Can we plan for avoiding confrontation? How do we handle conflict when we encounter it? What’s OUR FAULT? From an open newspaper to threats of violence, these and other questions having to do with difficult student/teacher interactions occupy the forefront of most TAs’ concerns about teaching. Through careful planning and preparation, sustained open interaction, and improved cultural awareness, instructors can avoid creating confrontations and become more adept at handling them successfully when they occur. This workshop, centered on discussion of nationally recognized case studies, will give participants a chance to air their own concerns and work out with their peers solutions to challenging incidents. The TAP will also provide useful resources for finding solutions to vexing problems associated with handling classroom conflict. To ensure that we can create workable cooperative-learning groups, workshop participation is limited to 35.