The TA Network Wiki Home

Welcome to our newest TAN resource - it's yours to edit and add to at will! Surf around and help to expand what is here with new pages and links

Members are invited to contribute articles and other publications of interest by posting a link to them or inserting the reference on the TAN Literature Page

CLL provides various teaching resources that can help you improve your abilities as TA.

Something all TAs may be interested in sharing with new students, especially if they will have to write a paper for the course, is the University of Indiana's quiz on plagiarism that gives great examples and tells you why if you have picked the wrong multiple choice answer.

Another resource to share with your students is the library subject and course guides which offer information on resources available by field, identifies the librarian in charge of that area of study, and also provides a tab for citation and style guides for each subject area.

Under the same research tab on the library main page the link for RefWorks bibliography software can be found, an invaluable tool for referencing while writing papers, theses, lab reports, etc. that is available to all McMaster students.

The The Center for Student Development is a great resource for TAs. They currently offer a workshop in suicide prevention which TAs can sign up for, but the article Hope in Dark Times provides valuable info on the basics which ALL of us should learn to spot and to know how to deal with. Anyone who is interested can register online for the CSD's suicide prevention workshop, called “QPR”, or Question, Persuade, Refer.

Had problems with difficult situations in your classes/labs/tutorials? You may want to watch this presentation on Dealing With Challenging Students by Dr. Lovaye Kajiura of McMaster's Biology Department.

Graduate Student Day (formerly TA Day) was held September 9, 2009. Over 700 attendees participated in workshops such as “The First Tutorial”, “Motivating Students”, “Marking Essays”, and “Lesson Planning for Different Learning Styles”. Participants could also have attended one of the two panel discussions, entitled “What do TAs Actually Do?” and “Entering the Academic Profession”. The workshops and panels were well received, stay tuned for more info on the day.

Three of our presenters have offered slides of their presentations for posting here. Also, for those of you unable to attend the sessions, copies of the CDs containing workshop resources are available in the CLL.

marking_essays_2009_ppt.pdf

the_first_tutorial_2009_ppt.pdf

stimulating_discussion_in_tutorials.ppt

Meeting Notes:

April 16, 2009

For more information on the TA network contact Terry McCurdy at gradnet@mcmaster.ca or extension 24368