Graduate Certificate in Course Design & Delivery

This five-part professional development workshop series provides graduate student instructors (GSIs) with research-based frameworks and practices for designing and delivering courses that center student learning. The program is organized around an interdisciplinary learning community that explores the following topics:

• developing course outcomes for significant learning;
• designing effective and accessible assessments that align with learning outcomes;
• enacting equity-minded teaching practices and syllabus design;
• understanding how learning works; and
• utilizing active learning techniques.

During the program, participating GSIs will craft and refine course materials including course learning outcomes, accessible course syllabi, equity-minded assessments, and lesson plans that put learning research into practice. Given the current conditions of our teaching and learning, the program is particularly attentive to online and remote learning during times of crisis.

Intended to support graduate students teaching courses in the Summer Sessions, the program includes individualized support from CITL's peer support team, a group of graduate student educators who have completed CITL's professional development programs and who are committed to building community around accessible and equity-minded pedagogy. The members of this team also attend the five workshops of the program, provide feedback on GSIs' course materials, and serve as a resource in both Spring and Summer as program participants prepare and then teach their courses. Participants are also asked to meet at least twice with their peer support person during Summer Session (or complete an equivalent, such as engaging in a peer observation of teaching) as a requirement of the certificate.

Spring-Summer 2022 Program Information

Program Dates & Location

The program typically includes five live sessions during every other Friday of the Spring Quarter. Program dates and location will be available soon.

In between live sessions, participants continue their work on course materials and submit them for recursive feedback and conversation. The program continues in Summer 2021 with individualized support, teaching consultations, and teaching observations while each participant teaches their Summer course(s).

How to Participate

The program is limited to 30 participants, and is open to all disciplines. Priority registration is given to graduate students who are teaching as GSIs in Summer 2022.

Participants commit to: attending all 5 live workshops; crafting and refining select course materials, with feedback from their peer support person; peer-reviewing another participant's course syllabus; and meeting at least twice (or equivalent) with their peer mentor during Summer Session.

Registration for the Spring-Summer 2022 program will open in Winter 2022. 

Graduate Certificate in Teaching for Equity

Are you passionate about promoting equity in higher education? CITL’s Teaching for Equity Graduate Certificate Program is a unique professionalization curriculum designed to enhance your understanding and implementation of best practices in equity-focused pedagogy. Through engaging conversations and structured learning activities, we’ll explore key issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in college classrooms. You will be guided in developing teaching strategies shown to foster the equitable learning outcomes that inspired so many of us to pursue higher education as a calling.

This intimate learning community of graduate students from across campus will meet bi-weekly (5 sessions total) during Spring quarter. Included among the topics we’ll cover: identifying common institutional barriers to learning; teaching to cultural strengths; implementing Universal Design for Learning; embracing identity and difference in the classroom; promoting active and collaborative learning; using emotional connection to motivate learning; and scaffolding assignments to benefit student success.

Depending on your personal teaching goals, you will be supported through the process of developing components of a equity-focused course syllabus, along with associated lesson plans and learning activities.

This program is a commitment, but we promise you’ll come away from the experience with an invaluable toolkit of equitable teaching strategies that will shape your course design and teaching practices for years to come.

Please join us!

Spring 2022 Program Information

The Spring 2022 program consists of five live sessions on every other Friday of the quarter. Program dates and locations will be announced soon.

How to Participate

Graduate students in any discipline and with any level of teaching experience are welcome to register. The certificate program is limited to 30 participants. Participants commit to attending all 5 live sessions during Spring 2022, and to completing structured and supported teaching projects as assigned.

Registration for the Spring 2022 program will open in Winter 2022.

Professional Development Series in Teaching Disciplinary Writing

This community of practice consists of a five-part workshop series and provides graduate student educators with research-based tools and strategies for teaching writing in their disciplines. The aim of the program is to provide a theoretical and practical toolkit for teaching disciplinary writing that applies to multiple contexts: when teaching as a TA for departmental disciplinary communication (DC) courses; when teaching courses of one’s own design in one’s own discipline, as a GSI at UCSC as well as in future teaching positions; and when writing in one’s own disciplinary contexts.

The program is organized around a learning community of interdisciplinary peers who explore the following topics:

• evidence-based approaches to teaching disciplinary writing, including understanding the significance of disciplinary and writing threshold concepts;
• tools and strategies for designing and scaffolding disciplinary writing assignments and assessments;
• active learning techniques for supporting students’ development of key skills associated with writing in a given discipline; and
• equity-minded, learner-centered approaches to both teaching and assessing writing.

Throughout the program, graduate student participants will (re-)design a disciplinary writing assignment, an attendant rubric to use as a teaching and learning tool, and an active learning activity that invites students to practice a key disciplinary writing skill relevant to that assignment. A central element of this program is the opportunity to work with and think alongside peers from a variety of teaching contexts and disciplines, and to engage in peer-to-peer mentoring that will facilitate your teaching of disciplinary writing.

Please note: If you are interested in additional opportunities to study the teaching of writing, the Writing Program offers credit-bearing coursework on writing pedagogy. For example, WRIT 203, offered in winter 2021, prepares graduate students to teach first-year composition at UCSC and elsewhere and serves as a prerequisite for applying to teach as a graduate student instructor in the Writing Program.

Winter 2022 Program Information

This Winter 2021 program is sponsored by The Humanities Institute.

Program Dates & Location

In Winter 2022, this program will be offered through a series of workshops held on five Fridays during the Winter quarter. Program dates and location will be announced during Fall Quarter 2021.

How to Participate

Registration will open in Fall Quarter 2021.

The program is limited to 30 graduate students in any discipline. By registering in this program, participants commit to:

• actively participating in the five scheduled synchronous sessions in Winter quarter;
• completing asynchronous tasks as assigned in the program syllabus, including short reading assignments;
• completing three projects, including a (redesigned) writing assignment, a rubric, and an active learning activity—great materials for a teaching portfolio and for implementing in current and future teaching contexts;
• preparing a short presentation of the above projects for sharing with other participants;
• providing feedback on and engaging with peers’ projects and ideas.

Graduate Certificate in Teaching with Technology

In this 5-part workshop series supported by the CITL and The Humanities Institute’s Expanding Humanities Impacts and Publics initiative, graduate students explore and experiment with a variety of resources for integrating digital methods into the classroom. Participants develop creative, technology-driven approaches to enhance student learning around a set of key competencies, including critical reading, data analysis, working with primary sources, annotating objects and collections, and translating knowledge and findings for a public audience. Each participant is expected to develop a digital assignment to be used in a future instructional setting. In this way, the program helps participants develop pedagogical practices that can inform their future career search.

Program Information

The Teaching with Technology Graduate Certificate Program will not be offered in 2021-22. Please re-visit this page for more information about upcoming offerings.