Teaching Assessment Fellowship
Teaching Assessment Fellows (TAFs) are Columbia University doctoral students who work closely with the Center for Teaching and Learning during the academic year to support and assess teaching initiatives. TAFs engage directly with strategies and methodologies for evaluating the efficacy of teaching, as they help to analyze the impact of teaching projects proposed by Columbia faculty and funded by the Office of the Provost.
Columbia doctoral students who have successfully completed the CTL’s Essentials of Teaching and Learning workshop series, a CTL seminar or institute, and/or a CTL Fellowship are eligible for this program.
How to apply
A call for applications for the inaugural cohort of Teaching Assessment Fellows went out in June 2019 and the application period is now closed. We will put out a call for 2020-21 TAFs in Summer 2020. To make sure you are alerted, join the CTL mail list.
TAF Program Activities
Teaching Assessment Fellows earn stipends of $2,000 ($1,000 at the end of each semester) upon successful completion of the activities listed below. These fellowships run for one academic year, and TAFs are expected to devote 30-35 hours per semester to the program.
Teaching Assessment Fellow activities include the following:
- Attending cohort meetings with other TAFs and mentors at the CTL during the academic year.
- Training to develop project-specific assessment strategies via CTL resources, CIRTL, and/or approved workshops or conferences.
- Developing assessment plans for faculty-defined teaching interventions, in consultation with pertinent faculty and with guidance from mentors at the CTL.
- Implementing assessment plans and analyzing data with guidance from mentors at the CTL.
- Drafting of assessment reports, in coordination with pertinent faculty and with the guidance from mentors at the CTL.
Skills cultivated by the TAF program include:
- Defining learning goals and research questions for teaching interventions.
- Selecting appropriate assessment methods and evaluation strategies for measuring student learning.
- Analyzing and presenting assessment data to guide future teaching practice.
- Collaborating with a teaching team with a variety of roles to implement and assess a teaching intervention.
Successful completion of this fellowship qualifies participants to be CTL Teaching Consultants in future years. Teaching Consultants are paid to conduct teaching observations for Columbia instructors across the university, under guidance of the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Questions about the program may be sent to CTLgrads@columbia.edu.
The CTL is here for graduate students.
The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning provides an array of support for graduate students in both their current and future teaching responsibilities.