Technology can help make teaching more effective and more efficient, but it can also be a hindrance if not used properly. This discussion of teaching with technology inside and outside the classroom will help TAs devise a sound rationale for including technology in their teaching and will give practical ideas for using technology in teaching. Through a discussion format, this session will address answers to the question "why teach with technology?" For a more hands-on approach, check out the computer-lab session "Technology for Teaching at UCLA: The Basics & More."

Come and try out programs and strategies that enhance student-teacher communication in and beyond the classroom. This session will be held in a computer lab, so come to learn the basics of setting up and managing an online gradebook, discussion boards, and wikis. Technophobes welcome.

What can TAs do to help their students write well-researched papers? This workshop will focus on how to teach undergraduates to evaluate sources and how to find relevant scholarship when they are often content to use information they find on the first page of a Google search. There are many steps that a TA can take throughout the quarter that will help students to become not only informed and competent consumers of information, but will instead transform those students into scholars. The workshop will provide practical skills for creating and incorporating research mini-assignments into discussion sections. Discussion topics will also include: undergraduates’ understanding of information literacy—including what is acceptable, reliable information on the Internet—and issues regarding proper citation, including plagiarism.

Microteaching is the presentation of a small section of a lesson. The goal of this workshop is to offer hands-on experience through teaching a five-minute microlesson. Choose from five general topics, or come prepared with your own five-minute presentation. Don’t fret! This opportunity to teach in front of a small group will allay anxiety and pinpoint your teaching strengths and weaknesses through anonymous feedback.

Panelists are often recipients of the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award and are invited to share their teaching philosophies and experiences. The majority of this session is dedicated to answering questions from conference participants. Bring your questions, or just come to listen!

As part of their duties TAs are often expected to grade some kind of student writing, such as an essay, a research paper, or an abstract. Unfortunately only a few disciplines, such as English and Comparative Literature, offer intensive training to prepare TAs for this task. The current budget crisis has resulted in the closing of the writing center at Covel Commons, and therefore, TAs will now bear nearly the entire burden of helping students improve their writing. This session focuses on resources that can help TAs to clarify writing assignments and prepare students to write. It can also enable TAs to devise effective comments on student work and covers how to deal with plagiarism. Workshop participants will practice grading papers and responding to student queries about grades.

In this interactive, hands-on session, international students will gain an understanding of how best to work within the culture of American university classrooms. Attendees will learn about and practice useful techniques for establishing and maintaining lively classroom discussions, in addition to mastering four steps to handling students’ questions. The session will also focus on details and preparation for UCLA English proficiency requirements including English as a Second Language (ESL) courses and the Test of Oral Proficiency (TOP).

Discussion sections are often the most rewarding part of a class. Yet, as moderators of these discussions, TAs are often terrified that they will be staring at blank faces for an hour. This workshop will focus on discussion sections in the social sciences and humanities, with special reference to making class material relevant to students and establishing a safe and comfortable environment in which productive discussions can occur. It will also examine how to craft effective discussion questions and how to keep discussions going beyond the classroom.

Mathematical problem-solving is a skill taught in many different subjects, including mathematics, statistics, economics, and applied sciences such as engineering. This workshop will offer suggestions for leading problem-solving lessons that help students learn to solve problems themselves rather than be given answers by a TA. Grading, often a critical and stressful aspect of being a TA, will also be addressed, including consistent grading by multiple TAs. Participants will practice grading problem sets in this workshop using different approaches to help remove subjectivity.

In the first part of this workshop, experience a "Shock Lesson," a demo lesson of first-day teaching in an unfamiliar language which shows how an experienced language TA would introduce a language without speaking English. Afterwards, join a group discussion with the Language Coordinators from your departments. The departments of French and Francophone Studies, Germanic Languages, Italian, Slavic Languages, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as Korean, Japanese, and Chinese will be represented. In the last part of the workshop, the Foreign Language IT Coordinator from the Center for Digital Humanities will discuss WIMBA, an online Oral Assessment Builder used regularly in language classrooms.