New Graduate Student Instructors are required to attend training sessions sponsored by Bioengineering Department and The Center for Teaching Development (CTD) before beginning their assignment. Attendance is mandatory and is a condition of the appointment.
Students for whom English is not a first language are generally required to pass an English test.
All GSIs who have not been trained by the department will attend a training session prior to the start of Fall quarter or Winter quarters. If you plan to apply for a GSI position at any time during the academic year you should attend this session. Experienced GSIs are also encouraged to attend these sessions, but are not required to do so.
As part of the training process, every new GSI is observed by a representative from CTD, and given a critique of his or her performance. This process involves observation of the GSI during office hours or during a problem session. During the session, the students in the class are invited to give feedback to the GSI by filling out a Student Feedback Form. The GSI then meets with the CTD representative to review his/her performance, go over the student comments, and, if appropriate, discuss strategies for improvement . Information from these observation sessions is NOT available to the Department, and is used only to provide constructive feedback to the new GSI.