Episode 23: Managing Large Teaching Teams with Sarah Jedd

Unpack This Episode

Grab a drink, gather your colleagues, and discuss.

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?