2022 TA and Future Faculty Awards Day

Spring Ph.D. graduate Karla Wagner will soon be headed to Cornell University to begin her new faculty position.  Wagner was honored at this week’s TA and Future Faculty Awards Day where she received her Tech to Teaching certificate and the GTA of the Year Award for the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Wagner says, “I credit much of my success in the academic job search and interview process to my experience in Tech to Teaching. It gave me the information,  terminology and support to successfully find this kind of job. I ended up with two job offers and have accepted a faculty position at Cornell. I’m so excited to start!”

Each spring, the Center for Teaching and Learning recognizes the accomplishments of our undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants, as well as our graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who have achieved milestones in their teaching development. This event recognizes three groups of honorees: Tech to Teaching and CIRTL teaching certificates, CTL graduate student cohorts, and TA of the Year Award winners.

The TA and Future Faculty Awards Day program lists the names and schools of everyone honored at the event. In addition to the awards ceremony and reception in the Student Success Center, the ceremony was live-streamed via BlueJeans Events.

Future Faculty Teaching Certificates

Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars receive the CIRTL Associate certificate for completing 10 learning outcomes that are organized around major pillars of evidence-based teaching: how students learn, the impact of student diversity on learning, effective teaching techniques, creating and assessing learning goals, and integrating technology into teaching. Members go on to earn the Tech to Teaching certificate for completing a mentored teaching capstone. This academic year, CTL awarded 64 CIRTL Associate Certificates and 41 Tech to Teaching certificates.

Graduate Student Cohorts

Graduate students contribute to teaching and learning at Georgia Tech through participation in three cohort programs. The Graduate Teaching Fellows serve as peer mentors for TAs and graduate students engaged in teaching development. The International TA Liaisons are developing a community of support for international teaching assistants. The BOLD Fellows create open educational resources for use at Georgia Tech and beyond. A total of 30 graduate students were recognized for their participation in these cohort programs.

Kevin Li and Bryan Clark receive UTA of the Year Awards

TA of the Year Awards

The TA Awards process begins at the school level, where each school selects one outstanding teaching assistant within each of five categories: Undergraduate TA of the Year, Graduate TA of the Year, Graduate Student Instructor of the Year, Online TA of the Year, and Online Head TA of the Year. This year, 67 outstanding Teaching Assistants were recognized, representing all six colleges and 26 schools and programs. From this pool, three winners per category were selected as Institute-wide TA of the Year and each received an award of $500.

Aerospace Engineering student Vinodhini Comandur, who received the Institute-wide GTA of the Year Award, said “CTL has helped me redefine teaching as well as learning and understand better my role as a teacher in a classroom. I have learned new aspects and techniques which helped me as a teaching assistant.”

The Center for Teaching and Learning congratulates the following Institute-wide TA of the Year Award winners as well as all 168 undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars who were recognized at this year’s event!

Undergraduate TA of the Year

Graduate TA of the Year

Graduate Student Instructor of the Year

Online TA of the Year

Online Head TA of the Year