As part of our efforts to improve the safety culture in the Chemistry Department, the JST has been assisting with training incoming graduate student and undergrad TA’s before each semester. TA’s are often put into situations that they may not be comfortable in or not have the experience in handling, the JST provides “live” training for the students to help them feel comfortable and confident in their position.
During this training, graduate student volunteers will “role-play” as students that do not follow standard lab rules (shorts in the lab, no safety goggles, etc.). The TA’s will have to identify the problem and intervene in the appropriate way. Afterwards, the graduate student volunteers will give feedback to the trainees.
This training will improve communication between TA’s and student’s and help to mitigate potential incidents throughout the semester. This training is designed to be fun for both the volunteers and the TA’s being trained. Outside of the designed scenarios in the training, it also gives the TA’s a chance to ask any questions/concerns they may have about TA’ing to students who were in their same shoes very recently.
TA training for this semester will be on August 28th at 5:30 pm, September 3rd at 5:00 pm, and on September 5th at 5:30 pm. Please see our blog post for more information!
Prior TA trainings have been a success!
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