U N I V E R S I T Y  O F  P I T T S B U R G H

Volume VIII, Number 3.

TA Handbook Revision Underway
By Marguerite Brown
TA Consultant
TA Services, CIDDE

One of the most useful resources available through CIDDE to instructors at the University of Pittsburgh is the reference handbook, The Teaching Assistant Experience. Edited by CIDDE staff, The Teaching Assistant Experience contains a wealth of information about teaching and learning at Pitt. It is available in both paper and online versions. A paper copy of the handbook can be obtained by sending a request to TA Services at TAHELP@cidde.pitt.edu or calling 624-6671. The online version is available.

While some handbook information, such as leading discussion recitations or supervising science labs, is specific to graduate student instructors, other sections provide information helpful to any instructors. For instance, in the chapter on “Effective Teaching” you will find advice on structuring your lessons to maximize retention, developing a positive relationship with your students, and handling various crises that may arise in the classroom. Other chapters of general interest include “Teaching Inclusively,” “Evaluating Students,” and “Becoming a Better Teacher.”

Last substantially revised in 2000, we are in the process of updating sections of the handbook for the third edition, due to be published in August 2003. One section to undergo considerable revision deals with teaching with technology. Along with widespread advances in instructional technologies in the past few years, the emergence of Blackboard as the University’s online course management system is significantly changing undergraduate education at Pitt. More than 1,500 courses, reaching nearly half of all Pitt undergraduates, have been developed for Blackboard. The revised TA handbook will cover the features of Blackboard and direct instructors on how to receive further training.

We will also include information on other new technologies and services available to instructors at Pitt. These include:

• The Faculty Instructional Development Lab (FIDL), a facility that provides faculty with the opportunity to investigate and apply instructional theory, learning theory, information technology, and multi-media technologies to instructional development projects;
• Janus, an interactive LCD panel that allows you to use your computer as a virtual blackboard and to write notes on top of your PowerPoint presentations, images, or Internet pages for projection onto a screen;
• Interactive Television (ITV), which allows the visual and verbal information from one classroom to be transmitted to another classroom located at a distance. Two-way audio and two-way video communication enable an instructor at one location to teach or present to students simultaneously at two or more locations.

More information about these and other technologies and services, including information on how to obtain training, can be found at CIDDE’s Website .

In order to include more of the kind of information that you find most helpful, we are undertaking an online survey of users of the handbook. We would like to know how often you consult the handbook and which sections of the book you have used most often. We would also like to know whether or not you find the online version of the handbook more useful than the paper version. The online and paper versions are textually identical; however, with access to the internet getting easier all the time, we would like to gauge whether the paper version is still serving a valuable purpose. If you have used either (or both) versions of the handbook, please take our survey online. With your input, we hope to make a valuable resource for instructors even better.

A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh

Center for Instructional Development & Distance Education
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Editor: Carol DeArment, Production: Joyce Walsh
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