Preparing International Graduate Students to be Teaching Assistants in a Student-centred Learning Context

Abstract

Graduate students are often engaged as teaching assistants in higher education but lack the necessary pedagogical experience and training to effectively facilitate student-centred learning of undergraduate students. Lack of training can hinder and limit their students’ learning. The gap here is to identify effective strategies and approaches to prepare graduate students to facilitate student-centred learning. This paper reports an attempt to prepare international graduate students to be teaching assistants in a university in Singapore that adopts student-centric learning. It examines the graduate students’ apriori teaching and learning experiences, teaching orientation, and reflections on learning to teach. Data from 66 graduate students were analysed using mixed methods. The results showed variation amongst internationally educated graduate students in their prior experiences of learning, which was reflected in their past teaching experiences. Generally, participants reported higher exposure to teacher-centred teaching practices and practices of the same. The students’ pre- and post- teaching orientation indicators and reflections showed that the students had more acceptance of the student-centric learning methods by the end of the short course and were cognisant of when to use teacher and student-centric teaching methods. This study demonstrates one possible approach to preparing international graduate students to facilitate effective student learning, and emphasises the need to understand graduate student profiles in preparing them to be teaching assistants.