Reflections from graduate student instructors on their first time teaching reveal structural and individual challenges

Abstract

Graduate student instructors occupy a unique ‘liminal space’ as trainees in and instructors of their discipline. While research has explored challenges graduate students face while teaching, there is limited exploration of the challenges graduate students face that transcend disciplinary boundaries while preparing for and teaching their first undergraduate class. This qualitative study asked graduate students to reflect on the challenges and surprises they encountered while preparing for and teaching their first undergraduate class. Our findings indicate that consistent with previous literature, most graduate student pedagogical training is not sufficient for preparing graduate student instructors and many of the challenges they encounter are the result of a lack of support and prioritization of pedagogy in graduate training. We anchor these findings in a discussion of structural barriers to effective pedagogical training in graduate school and a brief review of model graduate pedagogical training programs.