First Day to Final Grade: A Graduate Student's Guide to Teaching

By Anne Curzan and Lisa Damour

Book Overview

Many universities are concerned about improving the pedagogy used by their graduate students in the classroom. Yet few universities provide adequate training or support. As a result, most new graduate student teachers feel overwhelmed by the demands of being both a teacher and a student.
Written from the perspective of both professors who have been in the classroom for many years and inexperienced teachers of the "I wish someone had told me" variety, First Day to Final Grade should be every graduate student's first step in teaching. The guiding principle of this book is that, while theoretical wisdom about teaching is important, graduate students need specific, practical answers to questions that arise during the semester.
The text is written to function as a quick reference tool, but is equally effective when read from start to finish in preparation for teaching. It focuses on the "how tos" of teaching, such as setting up a lesson plan, running a discussion, and grading, as well as issues specific to the teaching assistant's unique role as both student and teacher, such as working effectively with the course professor and balancing teaching with graduate studies.
While some of the text addresses only first-time teachers, experienced teaching assistants can learn new teaching strategies from the material and use the specific lesson plans provided to vary their pedagogical approach. In addition, sections addressing the needs of international teaching assistants, questions of authority, diversity in the classroom, and various learning styles will also prove helpful to many.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 047206732X
• ISBN13: 9780472067329
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press ELT
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 6.0" x 0.5"

Customer Reviews

Good practical resource for a TA

Very helpful for graduate students who may receive little to no guidance in their teaching assistantships. As with most books of this nature, some topics address issues that are out of the graduate student's control, but will nevertheless be helpful for the future. Chapters cover a wide range of topics from designing a syllabus, weekly preparation, and running a discussion, to office hours and balancing student/teaching life. I relied heavily on this book when teaching a course for teaching assistants.

Excellent Resource for the Graduate Student TA

Considering that universities are relying more and more on graduate student instruction these days, I often wondered why none of the books I saw about teaching were directed towards grad students. Curzan & Damour's book fills that need and offers useful suggestions that will be appreciated by graduate student instructors and the faculty that supervise them. The strength of the book is that the authors clearly speak from personal experience about the issues unique to graduate student instructors. They give useful advice that ranges from the broad (how to lead discussions, how to grade a paper) to the more specific yet nevertheless important (how to dress, how to respond to student emails). That this is a book designed specifically for grad student teachers is demonstrated by coverage of topics such as how to maintain respect and authority in the classroom even though you might only be a few years older than your students, and how to deal with requests from students to socialize with them. I read the book before my first semester of graduate teaching, and I would highly recommend that others do the same. And anyone who supervises or works with graduate student instructors should consider getting the book for them as part of their training/development as teachers. As I said earlier, this book fits an important need given the growing number of courses taught by grad students, and it does so in an easy-to-read and very practically-useful manner. I've used the book in my own training, and as I move on to a faculty career, I will incorporate it into my work with other graduate students.