Work in progress — Leadership training for new EECS graduate teaching assistants

The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University has newly designed a graduate leadership course for all new graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). The subject of leadership is approached by looking at the specific application of teaching as a form of leadership. This interactive training course is collaboratively designed and delivered by a graduate student who has sufficient leadership experience working as a teaching assistant for various levels of undergraduate courses. Having a graduate student with experience in leadership, as a role model, to train incoming GTAs creates natural learning communities within the classroom. During the duration of the course, GTAs are constantly interacting with the graduate instructor and their peers both inside and outside of the classroom. GTAs are also encouraged to practice their learning within their study group, research group, and working environment. Self-efficacy surveys are given to students in the new GTA Leadership course, and the results are used on evaluating the successfulness of this course. Lessons learned and future work are also discussed.