Graduate Institute for Teaching (GIFT)

The Graduate Institute for Teaching is designed to prepare doctoral students who are interested in teaching at the college- or university-level. The GIFT program is broken up into two phases. During phase I, teaching fellows (TFs) attend a series of summer workshops on teaching pedagogy. Phase II takes place during the fall or spring semesters when teaching fellows co-teach a course with a Tufts faculty member

Phase I: Summer Workshops on Pedagogy

Taught by distinguished Tufts faculty, administrators, and staff, the GIFT summer workshops provide fellows with the training necessary to develop and lead their own college or university-level classes. In many cases, the workshops focus on topics rarely discussed with teaching assistants, for example, ways to resolve teacher-student conflicts and how issues of diversity affect the classroom experience. At the end of Phase I, each GIFT teaching fellow (TF) presents a sample lesson and receives feedback from fellow students. Woven into the workshop sessions are a series of social events. Attended by the teaching fellows and their mentors, these events give fellows the opportunity to benefit from faculty expertise on such issues as tenure, the balance between research and teaching, and how to find the right institutional match. The workshops for graduate students take place over fifteen days (four days per week, May through mid-June) and cover an array of topics, many of which are listed below.

Syllabus and course design
Lesson planning
Presentation skills
Engaging and motivating students
Leading group discussions, lab sections, and class projects
Teaching with technology
Teaching science
Assessing teaching, testing, and grading learning outcomes
Teacher-student relationships

Phase II: Classroom Experience

Each graduate student will co-teach a course under the direction of a faculty mentor during the fall or spring semesters. During the course, fellows will gain experience in the following.

Preparing a course syllabus
Classroom teaching (fellows lead a minimum of two classroom sessions)
Developing exam and essay questions
Applying what they learned during the workshops in a classroom setting
Receiving and putting into practice feedback from their mentors

More Information

Graduate Student Teaching Fellows
Faculty Mentors

Questions about GIFT can be directed to the Institute Director, Dr. Sinaia Nathanson at 617.627.2515 or GIFT@tufts.edu.

"The co-teaching opportunity was by far the best part about my experience with GIFT. This is not to say that the workshops were not interesting and helpful, but there is nothing like ‘hands-on’ experience in the classroom itself. And then, in my case, I was not just in the classroom, but I was also in the classroom being observed by one of the best teachers and certainly the most brilliant mind I have ever encountered in my many years of schooling, not to mention the fact that I admire him endlessly. So, in short, co-teaching was very gratifying, and I honestly don't think that GIFT would be as distinctive as it is without this component."
–GIFT alumna and English professor at an American university