Teaching Experience Description: The teaching experience allows graduate students to develop practical teaching skills that combine the observation, evaluation, and practice of teaching courses in a university setting under the direct supervision of a faculty mentor at the University of Hawai‘i. The student teaching experience is an integral part of the graduate program in nutritional sciences. PhD students who have a master’s degree are required to complete 1 semester of teaching experience. PhD students who have a bachelor’s degree are required to complete 2 semesters of teaching experience. MS students are required to complete 1 semester of teaching experience.
Student Responsibilities: Students are expected to play an active role in the course development and implementation under the guidance of the faculty mentor. Prior to the beginning of the semester, students must consult the Graduate Program Chair to identify a faculty mentor and/or departmental course that best matches the student’s interests and skillset. Once approved, the student must contact the faculty mentor. Once the faculty mentor agrees to partner with the student, a Teaching Agreement Memo should be completed (template provided). Once both the student and the faculty mentor sign the agreement, the agreement must be submitted to the graduate program chair before the start of the semester in which the teaching experience will occur.
Faculty mentor responsibilities:
The faculty mentor plays an essential and crucial role in preparing students to become effective and ethical teachers. Faculty mentors can support and guide the graduate students in the following ways:
- Develop the Teaching Agreement Memo with student, which clearly describes expectations and main teaching responsibilities of the student, prior to the start of the course.
- Meet with the student regularly to provide constructive feedback, reflect on student’s strengths, areas of improvement, and progress, and discuss any concerns in an effort to develop an open, supportive, and honest working relationship.
- Review teaching content (lesson plans, ppts, assignment, class activities) developed by the student and any grading of assignments completed by the student.
- Review and discuss the results of the student evaluation.
- Evaluate student’s performance and progress in their teaching development (rubric below).
The Teaching Agreement should allow the student to fulfill the following minimum requirements:
- Provide input on the course syllabus and assignments
- Lead at least two full classes (e.g., present lecture, lead activities, facilitate class discussions)
- Assist with grading and implementing class projects
- Grading must be done in collaboration with the faculty mentor. Graduate student should not be the sole grader of class assignments, exams, etc.
- Obtain feedback on teaching style from 3 sources:
- MANDATORY–STUDENT SURVEY: Graduate student will work with their faculty mentor to tailor the course evaluation survey and administer it to all classroom students at the end of a class taught by graduate student (template will be provided).
- In addition to the student survey, graduate student must collect two additional sources of evaluation of their teaching performance from the choices below.
- INSTRUCTOR OBSERVATION: The course instructor can either observe the instruction live or video-taped (minimum 30 minutes of instruction). The student must contact the instructor to schedule a feedback meeting where the student will be provided written and verbal feedback.
- PEER EVALUATION: A peer evaluation conducted by another student from the program (minimum 30 minutes)
CTE OBSERVATION: A 50 min classroom observation conducted by a teaching evaluator from the UH Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). The student must submit a request to CTE. The student must arrange a 30-40 minute debriefing meeting with the evaluator within a week following the observation. This option is dependent on CTE staff availability
Click HERE to download the teaching experience evaluation and memo.