Graduate Institute for Teaching (GIFT)

Mission Statement

At Tufts we strive for excellence in teaching, mentoring and scholarship, and our mission at the Graduate Institute for Teaching (GIFT) is to support graduate students and faculty in these activities. Our goal is to provide opportunities for graduate students, our future faculty, to build strong teaching and communication skills. We also support faculty to strive for excellence in teaching and mentoring and invite them to engage in new research on learning, in new developments in the fields we teach, in changing demographics of our students, and in new technology. GIFT works in collaboration with the University-wide Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CELT) and is generously supported by the Tufts Summer School.

What is GIFT?

GIFT is designed to mentor Ph.D. graduate students who are interested in becoming college-level faculty. In 2009, the Institute will consist of two main phases:

1. Summer workshops on pedagogy

The workshops for the graduate students will occur 4 days a week between May 18th-June 11th. The workshops will run from 9:00am to 2:00pm.

The workshop sessions will cover an array of topics, such as:

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, Testing and Grading Learning Outcomes
Teacher-Student Relationships

2. Mentored co-teaching opportunity in Fall 2009

Each graduate student will co-teach a course as a Teaching Fellow (TF) under the direction of a Faculty Mentor during the fall semester of 2009.

More Information

Graduate Student Teaching Fellows

Faculty Mentors

Questions about GIFT can be directed to the Institute Director, Dr. Sinaia Nathanson, by calling 617-627-2515 or by e-mailing GIFT@tufts.edu.

Tufts chemistry professor and department chair Krishna Kumar was named one of the world's 100 Top Young Innovators by <em>Technology Review</em> for his cutting-edge research on proteins that may have many medical uses.

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The Graduate Student Council (GSC) was established in the late 1980s and provides a forum for graduate students across all the disciplines. Each year, the GSC hosts a graduate student research symposium, a Giving Tree program (which donates toys to anonymous local children in the Medford/Somerville area) and a 5k Run/Walk, an event which has raised over $35,000 for a variety of charitable causes.

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The ratio of students to faculty rarely exceeds 12-1 in any Arts and Sciences graduate program, supporting the growth of significant mentoring and collegial relationships between faculty and students.

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The Department of Education is helping meet the need for good urban teachers through its Urban Teaching Training Collaborative (UTTC). The program places education graduate students in Boston-area schools were they work closely with a mentor teacher.

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