Below is a proposed Teaching Certificate Program that Amanda Schrager Lavelle and I put together at the prompting of Joe Edwards, the current PBGSA president. The purpose of the program is address what we perceive as a lack of guidance for students in our graduate group who are interested in teaching careers. While the program will initially only be for PhD students in the plant biology graduate group (PBGG) at UC Davis, we would certainly like to see it expanded to other groups. We will be presenting the program at the annual PBGG meeting in June and would love to get some feedback before then, so please read and comment below.

Proposed PBGG Teaching Certificate Program

The goal of the program is to provide PBGG students with a clear framework for developing their teaching skills, thereby allowing them to improve their competitiveness for teaching jobs/jobs with a significant teaching component. In most cases, this program would be completed after the qualifying exam, most likely in later stages of a student’s PhD career. Completing the program will take a typical PhD student at least 2 years, with the first 1-1.5 years dedicated to completing the TAing and elective requirements. These experiences will make the student more competitive to get into one of the non-TA teaching programs (described below). Continue reading →