Episode 23: Managing Large Teaching Teams with Sarah Jedd

Guest: Dr. Sarah Jedd

In this episode, we listen in on a conversation between Exchange contributor Laura Schmidli and Sarah Jedd, Associate Director for Introduction to Speech Composition in the Department of Communication Arts. Sarah shares the joys of managing a diverse teaching team of over 30 TAs. She reveals the opportunities for ethical education and community-building that large-enrollment courses can offer to teaching teams and students.

See the transcript for this episode.

The L&S Exchange Podcast is brought to you by L&S Teaching & Learning Administration and produced by the Instructional Design Collaborative. This podcast is recorded on ancestral Ho-Chunk land, a place their nation has called Teejop (day-JOPE) since time immemorial.

Join the Conversation

How did this episode make you think? What’s on your mind about inclusive teaching? Leave us a message on Spotify for Podcasters, respond to a poll using the Spotify app on your mobile device, reply with a comment at the bottom of this post, or send us an email. We may ask to feature your contribution in this or a future episode.

Conversation Starters

  1. Sarah shares that foundations of public speaking require students to center their audience. To what extent are audiences relevant to the subjects you teach? How might emphasizing audiences make activities or assignments more compelling or personal for your students?
  2. Sarah speaks about both a large teaching team from diverse disciplines and a large student body with diverse interests as assets to building community. How might you use larger teaching teams or larger class sizes to bring in more ideas and create community?
  3. Sarah recommends empathizing with specific students, such as the angry student, as a way for coordinators to identify improvements. What critical student feedback can help you target improvements? What adjustments could alleviate negative experiences?
  4. The Communication Arts 100 program ensures new instructors experience techniques in the student role before leading them in the instructor role. What skills, techniques, or philosophies are modeled in your program, department, or college’s training for new instructors?
  5. Sarah discusses making sure that regular teaching team meetings focus on sharing best practices. How can you organize your team meetings to support teaching effectiveness?
  6. Comm Arts 100 TAs have the resources of generations of teams before them. How might your teaching team facilitate resource sharing?

Further Reading & Resources

In this episode we mentioned, were inspired by, or wondered about the following resources and topics.

  • The Large-Enrollment Community meets monthly and provides opportunities to connect with colleagues, share experiences, and consider new ideas for teaching large courses. Virtual meetings feature short presentations from group members and ample time for full group discussion.
  • The College of Letters & Science runs a teaching observation program for graduate students called Peer Observation Partners. Enrollment for Fall 2024 is open through September 25, 2024.
  • UW-Madison’s Teaching Academy provides resources to help instructors across campus give and receive feedback on teaching. Learn more from the Teaching Academy’s Feedback on Teaching Resource.
  • The Delta Certificate in Higher Education Teaching and Learning offers a course in which graduate students observe instructors teaching to learn and develop their own teaching. This professional development opportunity for TAs is also a chance for instructors to give back to the UW teaching community. Instructors can fill out a form to express interest in opening their classroom to graduate student observers.
  • This resource on Reading Student Evaluations from the L&S TA Training & Support Team can be particularly useful for new instructors. It shares tips for getting useful information from student evaluations without getting overwhelmed.
  • The IDC article “Hold Effective and Inclusive Office Hours” provides 5 strategies from research literature, L&S instructors, and L&S students that can help you make your office hours more valuable to you and your students.

Production Credits

Producer: David Macasaet
Associate Producer: Laura Schmidli
Audio Engineer: David Macasaet
Audio Editor: David Macasaet
WiscWeb Administrator: Molly Harris
Development Producer: Jonathan Klein
Planning Group: Jonathan Klein, David Macasaet, Molly Harris, Laura Schmidli, Antonella Caloro, Maria Widmer
Executive Sponsorship: Shirin Malekpour

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.