Resources toolkit - Supporting international postgraduate teaching assistants

In the current neoliberal UK Higher Education sector, Graduate Teaching Assistants, and in particular International Graduate Teaching Assistants, are often the backbone of teaching delivery at undergraduate level (Raaper, 2018), with more and more teaching assistants being employed to support teaching and marking at postgraduate level. Most universities offer sessions that are meant to develop teaching skills in Graduate Teaching Assistants. However, the training provided in most universities focuses on practical skills and/or reflection, which is often at odds with the needs of International Graduate Teaching Assistants in particular, as cultural contexts, teaching conventions and administrative expectations are marginalised in this training. This type of knowledge is assumed to be tacit and implied, and rarely made explicit.

This toolkit aims to fill a huge gap in relation to publications on experiences and learning of International Graduate Teaching Assistants (Collins, 2019) by:

providing a focus on International Graduate Teaching Assistants’ needs whilst drawing out tools and considerations relevant to all Graduate Teaching Assistants

offering practical examples that can be used by those supporting Graduate Teaching Assistants

This guide is meant to offer useful ideas and a starting point for further developing awareness of the needs of International Graduate Teaching Assistants in their everyday practices. In this sense, the toolkit is not meant to be prescriptive at any level, but is intended to provide ideas and stimuli for which skills and techniques training sessions may be delivered and how.

The toolkit is primarily aimed at National and International Graduate Teaching Assistants and anyone supporting Graduate Teaching Assistants with their teaching, but may also be of interest to anyone involved in training and accreditation processes for the Higher Education Academy fellowships.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank SEDA for funding the research upon which much of this toolkit is based. This toolkit would also not have been possible without the GTAs who participated in our workshops and interviews: our thanks to you for working with us, challenging us, sharing with us, and inspiring us.