Prospectus

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Teaching Assistance Year 1

Course
2020-2021

Admission requirements

Admission to the Research Master Archaeology programme.

Description

The Research Master is a first step in an academic career. Besides research skills, academic positions require teaching skills as well. In this course, you provide active assistance in an undergraduate course for first-year archaeology students, and in this way you gain your first teaching experience.

Although individual courses may differ in their set-up, tutorials are characterised by blended learning: feedback is given partly during the tutorial and partly online.
The general set-up is as follows: you will coach a group of about 25-30 first-year students on a weekly basis, and give them tips and tricks on how to read and interpret texts, how to make a summary and how to study for the exams. You will discuss weekly assignments that are posted on Brightspace, and provide students with constructive feedback.

Generally you will be assigned to a BA1 course that matches with your background and/or talents. Please note that, depending on the number of RMA students, some students will be asked to participate in courses that deviate slightly from this set-up.

At the start of the academic year (September) you will attend an introductory course on practical didactic skills to prepare you for your first teaching adventure.

Course set-up

A teaching assistant coaches the BA1 students in 1 or 2 modules:
for 6 weeks in 2 World Archaeology courses: 2 days a week, tutorials of max. 4 hours (excluding preparation time), or,
for 14 weeks in total in Introduction to Heritage Studies, Landscape Dynamics 1+2, Field Techniques or Material Studies: 1 day a week, tutorials of max. 4 hours (excluding preparation time).

Course objectives

At least 4 of these course objectives should be met.

Ability to:

  • coach students in a constructive manner;

  • give clear written or oral feedback on assignments;

  • coach students in practising correct academic writing, discussion or presentation according to the prescribed academic standards;

  • cooperate with your fellow teaching assistants;

  • use Brightspace as a teaching tool: post feedback and grades and communicate unambiguously with your tutor group.

Timetable

Not applicable.

Mode of instruction

Tutorial.

Course load

Average of 8 hours per course day, including lectures, tutorial, feedback, and meetings, to a max. of 140 hours in total (5 ec).

Contact hours:

  • Introductory meeting and crash course: 6 hours;

  • Regular meetings with coordinator of the course in which you participate: minimum of 7 hours;

  • Two intervision meetings with other TA’s and a coach: 4 hours.

Assessment method

  • Reflection report (100%).

No retake is possible. The teaching assistance will not be graded, but will be evaluated by the students. The teaching assistant has to write a reflection report that follows the guidelines provided. In the reflection report the tutorial is reviewed and personally faced challenges and gained experience are discussed. Also the evaluation of the students should be included and reflected upon.

The report needs to be submitted through Brightspace within 3 weeks after the last tutorial.

Reading list

Not applicable.

Registration

Not applicable.

Contact

For more information about this course, please contact dr. J.A. (Joanne) Mol.

Remarks

Compulsory attendance.