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How to Teach With a Grad Student in the Classroom

As a College Professor you have a lot of teaching experience and are probably quite good at working with the undergraduate student population at your university. Generally, new professors are given basic, 100-level courses and maybe a few 200-level courses to teach. However, with professional advancement, such as being promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, comes the opportunity to teach upper level classes. You will begin encountering graduate students in these classes and will want to be able to effectively challenge them while remaining accessible to the undergraduates in your class. With some care and attention you can rise admirably to this teaching challenge.

Instructions

- 1
  Prepare lesson plans which take advantage of the fact you have one or more graduate students in the classroom. Reduce the amount of time you spend lecturing and use more student-centered activities in your class. Try placing students in small groups and have them brainstorm answers to question that arise in the subject matter you are teaching.
- 2
  Create assignments that address the varied levels of ability in your class.For instance, when assigning essays, create a range of writing prompts with varying degrees of complexity.
- 3
  Make sure to make the graduate student(s) in your class feel comfortable with their classmates and try not to single them out. Remember, even when you are exclusively teaching undergraduates, you still have to effectively instruct a range of abilities; this situation is not really all that different. Enjoy reading the sophisticated essays and thesis your graduate students are likely to produce.

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