Graduate Student Teaching Guidelines
Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Revised October 2004


I. Guidelines for Teaching Fellowships

The experience of teaching is viewed as an integral part of graduate student training for the M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in the Arts & Sciences. Thus, all graduate students are expected to gain appropriate teaching experience as part of their scholarly apprenticeship. Teaching Fellows receive the same financial aid support as Faculty and Dissertation Fellows.

Graduate students may also apply to teach in the Core Programs to broaden their teaching experience. Students who teach in the Undergraduate Writing Program, the Music Humanities Program and the Art Humanities Program are appointed as Teaching Fellows. Those who teach in the Literature Humanities Programs and Contemporary Civilization Programs are appointed as Core Preceptors and receive slightly higher stipends than Teaching Fellows and may be eligible for summer fellowships.

A) Guidelines for Selection and Assignment

The Graduate School asks each department to designate a faculty member, in some cases, the Director of Graduate Studies, to oversee the awarding of teaching fellowships and training in each department. The faculty member designated as the Director of Graduate Student Teaching in each department and the Directors and Chairs of the Core Programs are responsible for ensuring that equitable appointments are made and adequate training is provided. These faculty members should conform to the following guidelines for administering teaching programs and selecting Teaching Fellows to prevent misunderstandings about and inequities in the allocation of financial aid to graduate students:

1. Teaching Fellows must be in good academic standing.

2. Teaching Fellows in the Humanities and the Social Sciences departments must have completed the first year of their graduate programs.

3. Teaching Fellows must be within the seven-year limit for completion of the PhD, unless the department or Core program has obtained permission from the Graduate School after demonstrating that the student is in good academic standing and no other qualified student is available for the position.

4. Teaching Fellows must have demonstrated oral and written proficiency in English by passing the EPT and SPEAK tests administered by the American Language Program or must be enrolled in the International Teaching Fellows Training Course ( English Z0850).

5. Teaching Fellows must have demonstrated competency in the subject to be taught and evidence of good potential or prior teaching.

6. Teaching Fellows must register for Residence or Extended Residence and their tuition and mandatory health fees must be paid from the financial aid budget.

7. The maximum requirement for teaching may not exceed two semester courses per year. In rare cases, when enrollments exceed the available number of Teaching Fellows, Teaching Fellows may take on an additional course load for additional compensation equal to the salary portion of the Teaching Fellows stipend. First time Teaching Fellows may not take on additional teaching responsibilities. No Teaching Fellow may take on additional teaching responsibilities in more than one course.

8. Insofar as it is possible, Teaching Fellows should be offered a range of teaching responsibilities with increasing independence and student contact to gradually prepare them for independent teaching.

9. Care should be taken that Teaching Fellows receive appropriate and equitable assignments in relation to where they are in their academic programs. Workloads for Teaching Fellows vary due to difficulty of assignment or students' academic backgrounds. Therefore, these factors are taken into consideration when making assignments to ensure that the workloads of peers are equitable in the course of their graduate programs.

10. Care should be taken that Teaching Fellows receive appropriate and equitable tasks. For example, in a course supported by more than one teaching assistant, all tasks should be shared equally.

11. All Teaching Fellows should be compensated according to the standards set by the Graduate School. Therefore, departments and programs may not hire GSAS students on the Arts & Sciences adjunct budget.

12. If a student is awarded a Dissertation Fellowship, he or she may not be asked to give it up to teach unless the fellowship can be deferred.

13. If an outside funding agency does not allow students to teach, students may not be asked to give up those funds in order to teach.

14. In rare cases, a department may wish to recruit students from another Arts and Sciences department. First, the department must contact the Dean who oversees the PhD programs and obtain permission. Upon obtaining approval, the department may then contact the DGS’s of relevant departments for the names of students who are eligible because of their academic training and their academic standing. Under no circumstances may an instructor recruit a graduate student for a teaching assignment without the approval of the DGS of the student’s department. This procedure ensures that these graduate student is in good academic standing, has demonstrated oral and written proficiency in English, and has demonstrated competency in the subject to be taught and evidence of good potential or prior teaching.

15. In still rarer cases, a department may wish to recruit students from PhD programs outside the Arts and Sciences. The departments must contact the Dean who oversees the PhD programs so that the Dean can coordinate funding with the student’s school, as these programs are not covered by the GSAS financial aid allocation. Upon obtaining approval, the department may then contact the DGS’s of relevant programs for the names of students who are eligible because of their academic training and their academic standing. Under no circumstances may an instructor recruit a graduate student for a teaching assignment without the approval of the DGS of the student’s department. This procedure ensures that the student’s program has allocated the necessary stipend, tuition and fees and that the student is in good academic standing, has demonstrated oral and written proficiency in English, and has demonstrated competency in the subject to be taught and evidence of good potential or prior teaching.

16. Departments and Core programs must provide students with written guidelines of procedures for assigning and selecting Teaching Fellows which include:

• an outline of the types of positions available and deadlines for stating preferences for assignments
• a description of eligibility and selection criteria
• an explanation of how and when applicants will be notified
• details concerning how and when applicants should accept or decline a position

17. Departments and Core programs must provide Teaching Fellows with appointment letters indicating:

• the type and length of the teaching assignment
• the responsibilities expected of the assignment
• the training requirements
• the supervision and evaluation procedures
• details about compensation

18. Teaching Fellows should undergo training that adequately prepares them for their teaching responsibilities and facilitates their professional development. If a department or program is dissatisfied with a Teaching Fellow's work, a review of his or her performance is undertaken in a timely fashion. The DGS or faculty member in charge must inform the student in writing of his or her concerns, offer specific recommendations for improving performance and give the student time to respond. If the student fails to meet these requirements, he or she may not be re-appointed.

19. Despite efforts to ensure that procedures for making teaching assignments are fair and training for teaching responsibilities is adequate, disagreements and misunderstandings may arise. Graduate students and faculty should make every effort to resolve these differences by working together towards an agreeable solution. If these measures fail, they may make take them up with the Dean overseeing the GSAS PhD Programs. If the Dean is unable to resolve the conflict, they may make use of the GSAS grievance procedure.

B) Policy on Teaching in the School of International and Public Affairs and Columbia University Affiliates

1. Students may apply for teaching appointments in the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) to broaden their teaching apprenticeships. PhD students teaching in SIPA must be compensated at the standard GSAS stipend. Since such positions are considered funding external to the Graduate School’s financial aid allocation, students who teach in SIPA register for M&F and receive tuition and fees fellowships from GSAS.

2. Graduate students on Graduate School funding are discouraged from accepting teaching appointments at Columbia University affiliates, such as Barnard, Jewish Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary and Teachers College. Students should be aware that, according to the GSAS employment policy, they must obtain the permission of their departments if taking on employment up to ten hours and the permission of the Graduate School if taking on employment in excess of ten hours. Under no circumstances will employment over 20 hours be approved. Students found in violation of the GSAS employment policy will be asked to terminate their employment or may forfeit their GSAS funding. International students should be aware that more stringent limits on employment apply to them and should consult the International Students and Scholars Office.

II. Guidelines for Training and Supervision of Graduate-Student Teachers

Following are general guidelines for training and supervision of Graduate-Student Teachers. Teaching duties vary quite a bit, both within a department and from department to department and discipline to discipline, so it would be difficult to account for all variations in appointments; each department will therefore need to adapt these recommendations accordingly.

For the sake of clarity we've divided our recommendations: first, according to timing--before and during the appointment; and second, according to rank and duties-- those for graduate students serving in various teaching assistant capacities, such as graders, lab assistants, recitation leaders, and those for graduate students teaching their own courses, with full responsibility for their own sections/courses.

We urge departments to require that all graduate students teaching for them complete all aspects of their training. In many instances, especially for the extensive training that should be given to Teaching Fellows who teach their own course, this training can be set up as a course, preceding and/or accompanying the teaching, and the course can thus be listed on the graduate students' transcripts. In addition or alternatively, departments can make use of the teaching workshops run by GSAS-in such a case, departments should probably require their graduate instructors to attend these workshops. In all cases, Teaching Fellows should be given very clear instructions as to both their teaching responsibilities and their training requirements.

A) Before the Appointment/Duties begin:

1. Teaching Fellows who Assist Faculty Members should be given a preparatory session or two in which the faculty member[s] review with the Teaching Fellows the course--its syllabus, its goals and methodology--and the TA's specific duties within that course. Teaching Fellows who will assist in grading should be told what the assignments will be, as well as the standards by which the student work will be judged.

Discussion leaders should be given precise instructions, ideally with practice, for leading class discussions.

A written set of general guidelines-both in print and on-line-is helpful for reference and initial training, but it's best for these guidelines to be tailored to individual situations and accompanied by in-person meetings, whether one-on-one or in group workshops

2. Teaching Fellows who teach their own courses/sections:

Those graduate students who will be given their own sections of introductory or upper-level courses should receive substantial preparatory training, preferably including both practical advice and exposure to relevant pedagogical theories and methodologies. Whenever possible, this training should be designed as a course. Such a course should use a combination of formal meetings, workshops/discussion groups, and at-home assignments, including readings and written assignments of various kinds. Examples of written assignments could include (depending upon the course and the Teaching Fellow's duties), practice in creating lecture notes, questions for discussion, assignments, and exam questions for the students.

Note that currently many programs/departments provide all/most of this kind of training during the teaching term-a practice that often proves particularly useful, since it accompanies the actual teaching. However, even when most of the training accompanies the teaching, departments should try to provide some preliminary training or some way of starting the pedagogy course before the teaching begins.

B) During the term[s] of teaching:

Teaching Fellows who assist in grading should meet with the faculty member a few times, at least once before they receive the first assignment to be graded. They should receive detailed guidelines for grading and evaluating each assignment during the term.

Ideally some/all of the grades should be reviewed by the faculty member teaching the course, both in fairness to the undergraduates in the course and also to help train the graduate students to improve the quality and efficiency of their grading.

Teaching Fellows reading sets of papers, that is student essays, should receive additional guidance in how to respond to student writing--that is, not just how to "correct" and grade the papers, but how to respond to the thinking of the student writers.

Discussion leaders and lab assistants should be observed at least once, and samples of their class plans/notes and questions for discussion should be reviewed.

Teaching Fellows who teach their own course should receive on-going mentoring on all aspects of their teaching, including preparing class plans/notes, designing a syllabus [where relevant], as well as creating assignments and exams, leading discussions, and responding to and grading written work.

A faculty mentor should observe at least one of the Teaching Fellow's classes in the first year of teaching-this observation should be considered part of the training, not simply as evaluation. Depending upon a department's resources and teaching needs, this mentoring can be provided by one faculty member for all Teaching Fellows (as is the case for Music Hum, for example) or individually by different faculty members, ideally working with graduate students whose scholarly work they know. In the latter case, the department should provide guidelines as to what aspects of teaching the mentor should cover.

Evaluation

Each department should develop procedures for evaluating both the training the department provides and also the work of the Teaching Fellows. In addition, there should be a clear understanding of what constitutes unacceptable performance-failure to meet classes, hand back papers and assignments, etc. Since more and more academic jobs require the submission of student evaluations, departments need to have in place a system for distributing and collecting student evaluation forms for Teaching Fellows.