Teaching Assessment Fellowship
Teaching Assessment Fellows (TAFs) are Columbia University doctoral students who work closely with the Center for Teaching and Learning, faculty, and each other during the academic year to support and assess teaching initiatives. This fellowship is designed for graduate students who have particular interest in learning about methodologies and strategies for assessing course redesign efforts. They build these skills by helping to analyze the impact of teaching projects proposed by Columbia faculty and funded by the Office of the Provost. Program activities are outlined below.
Application preference is given to 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.
How to apply
Applications for 2024-25 Teaching Assessment Fellowships were accepted through April 1, 2024. A call for applications for the 2025-26 cohort will go out in March 2025. Please send questions about the TAF application process to CTLgrads@columbia.edu.
TAF Program Activities
Teaching Assessment Fellows are awarded a stipend of $2,000 for the academic year. This stipend is distributed in two installments upon successful completion of the activities listed below. TAFs are expected to devote 60-70 hours to the program, scheduled around their other commitments and distributed across the academic year.
Teaching Assessment Fellow activities include the following:
- Attending cohort meetings with other TAFs and mentors in the CTL during the academic year.
- Training to develop project-specific assessment strategies via CTL or CIRTL resources.
- 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 assessment reports, in coordination with pertinent faculty and with the guidance from mentors at the CTL.
- Consulting or collaborating on other Provost-funded teaching projects as needed.
Skills cultivated by the TAF program include:
- Defining learning goals and assessment questions for teaching interventions.
- Selecting appropriate assessment methods and evaluation strategies for measuring student learning.
- Designing survey questions to measure the student learning experience.
- 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 CTL Teaching Observations, Mid-Course Reviews, and Practice Teaching (Microteaching) sessions for Columbia graduate student 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.