UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State graduate students who wish to support peers in their roles as instructors can apply for a new program from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence.
The Schreyer Institute launched the Teaching and Learning Resource Liaison program in spring 2022 to enlist Penn State graduate students in a part-time role (an average of five hours per week) developing teaching resources for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in their home department.
The inaugural liaison, Ph.D. candidate Ankit Saxena, spent the spring 2022 semester investigating resources available through the Big Ten to support GTAs in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Saxena, who began his Penn State graduate studies in fall 2018, was selected as the first liaison following a University-wide competitive application process.
Saxena performed a benchmarking study demonstrating the landscape of GTA resources available at research-intensive universities in the United States. The goal of the study was to understand the current state of pedagogical training for GTAs, as well as the challenges and opportunities for improvement within Big Ten+ Mechanical Engineering Departments.
“Teaching and Learning Resource Liaisons not only develop pedagogical resources, they also create community by focusing on their home department's needs," said Larkin Hood, associate research professor in the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and lead for the program. "Ankit works to pedagogically support GTAs in his department, and in the process he is contributing to national conversations in engineering education. He has really taken his pedagogical work to the next level."
Saxena collaborated with Catherine Berdanier, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and resident expert in engineering education research, to study pedagogical development as a crucial first step towards preparing GTAs to become future faculty members. Saxena will present a paper on his study at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in October.
Saxena has also recently been awarded the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Graduate Teaching Fellowship for the academic year 2022–23. Through this fellowship, Saxena will be responsible for teaching a core Penn State Mechanical Engineering course as the instructor of record.
Saxena said, “The pedagogical research I conducted as the Teaching and Learning Resource Liaison has made me aware of the host of resources that are available for educators in engineering both within Penn State and across the Big Ten. I look forward to applying this knowledge in my new role as the ASME Graduate Teaching Fellow and in the future as an aspiring faculty member.”
Penn State graduate students interested in the Teaching and Learning Resource Liaison position are invited to apply for the fall 2022 semester and/or the spring 2023 semester. A graduate student can occupy the part-time position for a semester, academic year or longer. To apply, visit WorkLion and click on the Career menu. From there, find the job posting by searching either "Schreyer Institute" or "REQ_0000034287." This is an hourly position averaging five hours per week (for a total of 75 hours over 15 weeks).
Questions can be directed to Larkin Hood (lnh2@psu.edu).
The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence is part of Penn State Undergraduate Education.