> Teaching Experience

"Don't confuse what's urgent with what's important." -- Arthur Kelman

PP799 Practicum in Plant Pathology Teaching, 2 or more credits.

A one-semester teaching experience or equivalent is required and may not be waived. The credit(s) earned count toward fulfillment of 2 required credits for the Ph.D. Major. A graduate student completing PP799, Teaching Practicum in Plant Pathology, will be graded on a A-F scale by the supervising teaching faculty member. After the student course evaluations have been complied, the supervising faculty member will also give the TA student a written evaluation of his or her teaching performance and potential; a copy of this evaluation will be placed in the student’s file.

Students who will be TA’s have the opportunity to take PP 800, Teaching Biology, and/or PP 801 Teaching Biology, Special Topics to help prepare for the TA experience and their future professional teaching. PP 800, sec 301 offers students’ specific preparation for PP 123 lab exercises.

Teaching teaches teachers many things. When we teach, we learn about communication, learning, and about the subject matter itself. We learn about the people we teach -- what motivates, interests, or frustrates them. Teaching often leads us to examine our use of time. We encourage you to use your teaching experience to practice your skills in time management. Perhaps most importantly, we learn about ourselves. Teaching forces most of us to confront the limits of our knowledge, our strengths and weaknesses as communicators, and our values.

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