The Lead Network
The Graduate Teacher Program instituted its Lead Graduate Teacher Network in 1992 using funds provided by the Office of the Chancellor.  In 2005 the Lead Graduate Teacher Network was cited as a Best Practice in the Woodrow Wilson Foundation's study of graduate education in the United States,The Responsive PhD: Innovations in U.S. Doctoral Education. In 2006, the Lead Network won the TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Exceptional Faculty Development Programs. Through the Lead Graduate Teacher Network, the GTP supports discipline-specific teacher training activities in seven schools and colleges and in over 45 graduate programs on the Boulder campus. Lead graduate teachers (leads) are selected by their departmental faculty and are trained by and report to the director of the Graduate Teacher Program. Two lead coordinators, one for Arts & Humanities and one for Social Sciences and STEM assist with the coordination of the program.  Lead coordinators coordinate the work of the interdisciplinary teams and guide leads as they carry out their plans throughout the academic year. Leads work with a home department faculty mentor to support graduate students who teach recitations, labs, or first-year classes in their home departments.

The Lead Network is founded on the philosophy that the value of a research institution lies in its interdisciplinary character. As a cross-campus network that brings together leads from all disciplines, the Lead Network benefits from shared knowledge and expertise and allows for an exchange of innovative ideas and strategies. The first goal of the Lead Graduate Teacher Network is to develop the leads themselves as future professionals by providing them with an understanding of and experience in: 1) academic management, 2) academic leadership, 3) effective pedagogy and assessment in the college classroom, 4) collegiality and interdisciplinary team work, and 5) consultation on teaching.  The second goal of the program is to help lead graduate teachers improve the environment and training for teaching assistants in their home departments in order to improve classroom teaching in undergraduate courses.

Lead Graduate Teachers

Leads are graduate student instructors who have a strong interest in teaching at the college or university level, have had three or more years of teaching experience, and have maintained a minimum score of 3.0 or better on their FCQs. They are hired as Administrative Interns and paid by the Graduate Teacher Program. The Director of the Graduate Teacher Program supervises the Lead Graduate Teacher Network and the Lead Coordinators. Leads serve as liaisons between the GTP and their home departments and assist with teaching assistant preparation in their  home departments. Leads generally serve for two semesters and are allowed to serve for two years.

Interdisciplinary Teams
During the training, leads from related disciplines form small working teams which meet and
work together throughout the year. The teams provide an
interdisciplinary context to TA training activities throughout the year
and promote the sharing of useful and interesting ideas between
departments.

Training
Leads undergo a comprehensive training for one week in May in preparation for the following academic year. The training introduces aspects of academic management, academic leadership, pedagogy, consultation on teaching, and teamwork at the university level.  Leads learn to facilitate consultative microteaching sessions, perform one-on-one consultations, carry out classroom videotape consultation, and to do non-evaluative classroom observations. Each lead also receives a Lead Graduate Teacher Manual which contains the basic materials to be used in their home department work.

Responsibilities & Activities in the Home Department
Leads serve as a liaison of the Graduate Teacher Program in the home department and assist faculty with departmental training of new teaching assistants. As GTP liaisons, leads forward GTP information to the department, encourage graduate students to continue to pursue their professional development throughout their graduate programs, assist other graduate students with the completion of requirements for the Graduate Teacher Program's certificates, and work on their interdisciplinary teams. They may help faculty conduct a pre-semester teaching orientation, provide a microteaching session, observe or videotape and consult with teaching assistants about their actual classroom teaching, design mentoring activities to link incoming graduate students with students who have been in the program for a while ; facilitate or organize workshops or brown bags on teaching for the department, and have the liberty to develop a small original project related to classroom teaching for the department.

Evaluation
The Graduate Teacher Program conducts a yearly evaluation of the Lead Network and pays close attention to the comments received. Recently, a survey of past leads showed a high degree of satisfaction with the lead experience, as well as a positive correlation between the skills gained as a lead and subsequent success on the job market either as faculty or outside academe. As one previous lead puts it, "I am currently employed as an assistant professor and the lead training that I received from the GTP helped me in many ways. It provided me with an edge when competing with a large number of candidates for a few positions. The skills that I obtained were invaluable in making the transition from graduate student to faculty member."

Contribution
The contribution of the Lead Graduate Teacher Network exists on several levels. First of all, its focus is on discipline-specific activities within each department, as a complement to the more generalized, campus-wide activities offered by the Graduate Teacher Program. Leads are encouraged to articulate the special knowledge and skills that teachers in their disciplines need to bring to the experience of teaching to facilitate deep learning in their classes. Second, the Lead Network provides an important resource within each department to assist with departmental TA training activities; it also provides an important peer resource for graduate instructors, and helps build a sense of community and commitment to teaching, both within the department and campus-wide. Further, it helps to ensure a high quality of undergraduate teaching on the part of graduate instructors and provides a forum for the exchange of worthwhile ideas on teaching across the campus. And most importantly, it is means of preparing future faculty and future academic administrators. The leads themselves gain considerable administrative and organizational experience, making the experience an invaluable step in their professional development, regardless of the direction taken after graduation.

Commentary from Leads:

Teaching ...

"I appreciate all the training and support I have received from the Graduate Teacher Program. There is no doubt in my mind that my own teaching has improved this year as a result of being a Lead."

"Overall being the Lead TA has been a rewarding experience for me. I have been able to make the process of becoming a teacher easier on our department's TAs ... Not only did I participate in the process of teaching with the others, but I have learned quite a bit more about teaching than even I expected."

"It's interesting working with people your age. I've had to learn a new way of interacting to work with a group of my peers. I'm used to working with little kids."

Faculty Development Opportunities ...

"The negotiation, consultation and presentation skills have been very important to my career."

"My experience as a Lead was professional development and it continues to serve me, both organizationally and professionally."

"For me personally, I really liked meeting people from other departments and seeing how they do things in other parts of campus. And in my department meeting people who were very interested in discussion. People were really interested."

Career Development ...

"The most interesting feature of being a Lead was the response of faculty during my job interviews. Liberal arts schools, especially, seemed very impressed by the duties and commitments Leads have toward teaching excellence. For this opportunity, I remain grateful."

"In general, I have found few (if any) new faculty (at my new job) that have received the high quality training I received."

"Its my first real experience working with peers. I did have experience as a head counsellor, but this was my first experience working with people who challenge me. People who I would want to learn from."

National Perspective ...

The Graduate Teacher Program's Lead Graduate Teacher Network "is clearly making a substantial impact on [the Leads'] professional development and altering the academic cultures of approximately 40 departments ... it provides a model other PFF sites might wish to consider and follow." -- James F. Slevin, Professor, Georgetown University, Site Evaluator for NPFF Project