Teaching guidelines are provided so that our graduate students are adequately trained as teachers, the workload is distributed fairly among our students, and our undergraduates receive high quality instruction from graduate students supported by the department. Every graduate student with duties in their first or second year in the program involving teaching undergraduates is required to take the course GRSC 7770 (offered only once a year in the fall) as soon as possible after first enrolling at UGA. A student can receive an official waiver from taking GRSC 7770, on petition from the department, if the student has had an equivalent course at another institution. International graduate students with low scores on the speaking test may be required to take the courses LLED 7768 and LLED 7769 in their first year and thereafter until they pass them. All international students are expected to achieve a level of proficiency in English so as to be able to teach UGA undergraduate students by the fall semester of their third year in our program. If the Graduate Committee decides that a student is not ready to teach their own course when specified by these guidelines, the student's support will, after due process has been accorded, be decreased by 1 unit during the year in which the teaching was to have started. As an alternative to reducing support, additional non-teaching duties may be assigned. The teaching ability of the student will be reviewed in each subsequent spring semester. The student's support will be reinstated, left unchanged or further decreased, depending on the Graduate Committee's evaluation of the student's ability to teach during the following academic year. A domestic student may be the instructor of record for a section of Precalculus already in the fall of their second year at UGA. Each doctoral student teaching Precalculus (Math 1113) for the first time will take the Teaching Preparation Course, Math 9005, offered every year in the fall (an MA student will register for the same course under the number Math 7005). At this time, the student will have the opportunity to choose a faculty teaching mentor. The teaching mentor will also be a resource to the graduate student instructor in subsequent semesters and will become the person in the department most likely to be in a position to write a letter of recommendation about the teaching of the student. After demonstrating competency in teaching Precalculus, a student may continue and teach Precalculus again in the following Spring. They are required to enroll in the Teaching Preparation Course, Math 9005. Graduate students who have demonstrated competency in their teaching are expected to advance to teaching Calculus in their third year (departmental scheduling needs may necessitate students being given duties other than teaching in any given term). A domestic student may be the instructor of record for a section of Calculus (Math2250) already in the spring semester of their second year at UGA. Each graduate student teaching Calculus for the first time will also sit in on the weekly calculus instruction sessions. The faculty instructor for Math 7005/9005 will review the performance of each graduate student teaching Precalculus or Calculus for the first time on a weekly basis. After five weeks of classes, the faculty instructor will report to the Graduate Committee the name of any student whose performance in teaching is deemed substandard. If such a name is reported, the Graduate Committee will meet with the faculty instructor and the teaching mentor of the student to discuss steps to help the student improve, and to communicate officially these steps to the student. At the end of each semester, the Graduate Committee will review the faculty evaluations and student evaluations from the course that the student taught that semester. If the Graduate Committee decides, after due process has been accorded, that a student’s teaching performance has been substandard, the student's support will be decreased. As an alternative to reducing support, additional non-teaching duties may be assigned. The student will be allowed to retake Math 7005/9005 when next offered for the relevant course.
