Developing a comprehensive graduate TA preparation program

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are key partners in the education of undergraduate students. It is important to adequately prepare them for teaching since they have the potential to have a large impact on student learning outcomes. But GTAs are also students themselves, and have many demands on their time. The School of Physics at Georgia Tech has been offering a GTA preparation course for first-year PhD students since 2013, and over time the course has evolved into a robust and comprehensive professional development program that prepares GTAs for the classroom and beyond. In this talk I describe the program's development and evolution, focusing on the key elements that have made it successful.