DOMAIN D: FULFILLMENT OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

 

D1. Teaching Assistants will demonstrate evidence of professionalism as defined by the Depart-ment of English Graduate Handbook and the Reglamento of the University of Puerto Rico at Ma-yaguez.

 

 

As part of my bachelor’s degree in English, I completed a teaching certification and obtained a teaching license to be able to work as a certified teacher. To complete the certification, students had to take various courses focusing on education, as well as complete a methodology and a practice course. In these courses, candidates for a teaching certification had to function as teachers in a public school and complete a full semester of teaching. The methodology and practice courses taught future teachers the importance of always maintaining a professional appearance in the job environment. Teachers had to dress appropriate for their practice, functioning as faculty members of their school, and behave professionally when dealing with faculty members, students and their parents. From this year of methodology and practice, I learned the responsibility of always maintaining a professional demeanor in the classroom, as well as in communication with students through email and social media sites, such as the facebook group page. Graduate teaching assistants represent the institution for which they are working and carrying and unprofessional demeanor will affect the name of the institution in the eyes of college freshmen. On the 2015 fall semester, I was given a section at 7:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Classes began on a Thursday, which meant that for all of the students of that section I was their first experience with a college professor. The experience carried on that day would represent the institution as well, demonstrating the importance of presenting myself as a figure of authority inside the classroom. Being responsible with the correction of student work, the organization of the course and prompt arrival for class also contribute in demonstrating professionalism towards our students.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D2. Teaching Assistants will build and maintain professional relationships with students, mentors, colleagues, and other University community members.

 

 

The class University Teaching Development helps students in their development as educators, as well as gives the opportunity for graduate teaching assistants to interact and function as faculty members. In this manner, as students and teaching instructors, we are given the opportunity to observe other faculty members as part of our requirements for the UTD course. Observing faculty members helps us develop professionally, reflecting on our teaching based on other faculty members’ teachings, as well as to build professional relationships with those faculty members. I say this because we have pre and post observation meetings for faculty as well as peer observations, where we get a chance to discuss their teaching methods to learn from them. Graduate students are also able to build professional relationships with their UTD course evaluators. Each semester, students are assigned course evaluators from the course coordination faculty members. These evaluators observe graduate student classes as well as hold pre and post observation meetings, were they discuss the strengths of the classes observed and methods to improve teaching. One last opportunity to build professional relationships is through the UTD course meetings, facebook group and word press blog. The UTD course meetings gather all graduate teaching instructors and during these meetings, we are able to address concerning issues, as well as receive feedback on our doubts from our peers. The facebook group and word press blog contribute to this feedback process as well, helping students from the MAEE to get to know each other better and receive helpful responses to their pressing doubts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D3. Teaching Assistants will seek and demonstrate value of professional growth through involve-ment in professional organizations, maintenance and enrichment of proficiency in English, and awareness of research on language acquisition and pedagogy.

 

 

During my time as a teaching assistant in the MAEE, I participated in three conferences aimed at university teaching development. These conferences were the “We Teach Too” conferences offered by graduate teaching instructors from the English department. The first conference was held in the fall semester, 2014. For the second conference, held in the spring semester, 2015, I was in charge of one of the demos as well as the creation of the program for the conference. My demo focused on teaching plagiarism to college freshmen in an Intermediate English classroom. Apart from these conferences, we also need to fulfill, as part of the requirements for the MAEE, 21 hours of professional development. To complete these hours we attended various workshops offered by the Center for Professional Enrichment, working together with the Office of Graduate Studies. These workshops are aimed at helping graduate students in the completion of their master’s degree and feature topics such as research opportunities, funding opportunities, developing their proposal, etc. These conferences and workshops are a requirement, which helps students immensely in their professional development and I am grateful for being given the opportunity to participate in them.