As the 2021–2022 academic year comes to an end, the OTLT Center for Teaching would like to thank our graduate teaching fellows for their invaluable work. 

We asked them to reflect on a memorable aspect of the fellowship.  

Dan Corry 

“Being able to meet with the other fellows was a wonderful experience that I’m not sure  I would’ve gotten through many other avenues. I often find myself in my bubble of public health on a day-to-day basis, so being able to talk about topics in pedagogy with folks from other academic areas was  refreshing. I’m looking forward to applying a lot of the perspectives that came up in the past two semesters into my own teaching.  

Early on last semester Katherine caught me siloing academia and the so-called ‘real world’ in something that I  said. It got me thinking more critically about the place that academic institutions have in the world, and I’ve since tried to do away with the silo dichotomy because I believe that academia is a critical part of the real world and not in its separate ivory tower. And I’ve also tried to do away with siloing in facets of my research” 

Dominic Dongilli 

“We know that university classrooms are learning communities; they are most successful when that community develops over time and with intention. Yet we don't always approach graduate instructor formation with that community-based mindset. The cohort was a multidisciplinary group that was never short on innovative perspectives and a source of dialogue. I so appreciated having the opportunity to work with colleagues across the sciences, social sciences, and fine arts. I always left our biweekly meetings with strategies and support for the various challenges we were working through as the semester progressed. Also having the opportunity to work with the entire Center for Teaching staff to develop a pedagogical workshop was such an exciting opportunity to collaborate on a project-based team beyond the more typical research collaborations of graduate school.” 

 

Lauren Irwin 

“Above all else, I valued the fellows’ community. I enjoyed having a space to make meaning of the daily realities of teaching. I was glad to have the fellows as a sounding board to process challenges and envision new practices, especially during a time where many of us were juggling online, in-person, and/or hybrid teaching. Further, I learned so much from my colleagues’ experiences and perspectives on teaching from multiple departments and disciplines. I appreciated our focus on syllabi throughout the year—sharing syllabi for feedback and critically considering what functions we intend our syllabi to serve. I benefited from revisiting existing syllabi for courses I’ve taught and considering how my course summaries, learning objectives, grading policies, and more conveyed (or didn’t) aspects of student support, collaboration, and my own teaching philosophy. Moving forward, I am more confident that my course syllabi will be better aligned with my pedagogical style and better reflect my courses—in content and spirit.”   
 

Hao Zhou 

"The Graduate Teaching Fellowship has helped me become a more thoughtful, effective teacher. It was valuable to be among graduate instructors who are from different disciplines but all interested in creating supportive learning environments for students. Along with the fellowship workshops, one-on-one career guidance (such as support with academic cover letters and interview) was extremely valuable and unforgettable!

I learned a lot about the fundamentals of course/syllabus design, which was an area I felt weaker about before. Like everything in the fellowship, the section on course design was very wholistic, from practical details to bigger-picture themes like inclusivity."

We wish our fellows the best of luck in their future endeavors.