CIRTL BRIEF
NUMBER 3
It Would Be Great If…..: Texas A&M’s Graduate Teaching Academy
Bruce Herbert1, Kitch Barnicle2, Will Fulton3, Dave Hatfield3, PJ Bennet4, Rique Campa5, and Mai Abdul
Rahman6
1
TAMU-CIRTL; 2 CIRTL Central; 3 WISC-CIRTL; 4 COLO-CIRTL; 5 MSU-CIRTL, and 6 Howard-CIRTL
The Portal Team is sharing a series of briefs that highlight possible ways to use the CIRTL Café
(http://cirtlcafe.net/) to link the local learning communities at each CIRTL campus. In each
case, we ask the local CIRTL leaders to ask questions that start: “It would be great if……”. The
portal team will brainstorm some possible solutions and strategies.
The Graduate Teaching Academy
The Graduate Teaching Academy is a graduate student learning community sponsored by the Center for
Teaching Excellence (CTE) and supported by CIRTL. The GTA is a workshop-based program focused on the
development of effective teaching practices to enhance the current and future careers of graduates
students and post-docs. This one year program includes a seminar series by professors recognized for
excellence in teaching, hands-on workshops, and small group discussions. Participants may enter at the
beginning of the fall or spring semester. Participants may choose to work towards a certification
designation as a “GTA Fellow” by completing program requirements.
The GTA Steering Committee (GTASC), a group of experienced graduate students, organizes and
implements the GTA program. GTASC members set the tone and direction for each year with the help of
the Center for Teaching Excellence.
It would be great if we can take GTASC meetings online…..
Question: In reference to attempting to have the GTASC meeting online, what equipment do GTASC
members need to make this happen. They'd like to know so they can start to possibly gather whatever
they need, if they don't already have it. Will this meeting be via Elluminate or the Cafe, or are they one in
the same in this regard?
Answer: I would say that the Café and Elluminate are different tools in the CIRTL portal since in earlier
meetings we decided that the CIRTL portal was all the tools we are using.
Option one (localized). If you want all the participants together in one room you will need a
room equipped with a screen, LCD/Data Projector and Ethernet access (wired works better but wireless
is OK). Then you will need one computer with a microphone (preferably the boom kind). Your speaker
will need access to a computer, Ethernet connection, microphone, and web camera. This set up will
allow all the participants from campus to interact with each other well hearing a speaker at a remote
location.
Option two (dispersed). Each participant could log into the workshop from anywhere in the
world. They would need a computer, Ethernet connection, microphone, and web camera. The speaker
would need the same. This would allow you to have workshops that people could participate in from
anywhere you would lose the face to face interaction though.
Option three (blended). In this case you could allow participants to log in from remote locations
well still having a central room they could come to if they want. This would give you the ability to see
which option your graduate students like the best. You may find you have two different groups of
graduate students that each prefers a different means of interacting with each other.
http://cirtlcafe.net/
CIRTL BRIEF
NUMBER 3
The CIRTL Café Tools
Question: GTASC is searching for a way to track workshop attendance more efficiently than by
spreadsheet since someone would have to go into eLearning and input the data from the spreadsheet. In
addition, it takes too much time at the start of workshops to have people sign in directly on a computer
as there are too many workshop participants for one or even two computers. Can you think of a way to
help them solve this problem? Is there anyway we can utilize the cafe for this? This way we can collect
additional information from workshop participants; maybe by including a short survey about the
workshop as they record their attendance.
Answer: If you used Elluminate you could include a one question quiz were the participants had to enter
their name some time during the presentation. Then all you would need is to have the individuals sign
up ahead or after will all the other data you want from them.
I also like the clickers idea that Bruce had for this. If as part of their registration process they had to buy
a clicker then you could keep track of them that way. We use the iClicker system here at CU. The system
is portable and all you would need to buy is a base station (~$300).
http://cirtlcafe.net/