Starting in 1996 I began to train teachers to teach my courses (I wanted to preserve my legacy in terms of courses and concepts learned and taught over my lifetime). I proactively recruited people to become teaching assistants in my courses—people whom I knew had the gift of teaching and had a good learning posture. And now, looking back I can evaluate the results of this. Let me first give you my basic approach for the first eight years of that effort and then some results of it. Then I will hint at what I have been doing the last four years.

•  DOMINANTLY MODELING
       In my first 20 years of teaching I only had one Teaching Assistant. My teaching assistant came to every class and observed what I was doing. The TA would grade papers. I would usually comment on the papers they graded before they went back to the student. I expected my TAs to be constantly observing what I did and how I did it. I had occasional interaction about it. I would occasionally let a TA give something in class.

•  TAKE THEM THROUGH MY TEACHING MANUAL (I have a 343 page PDF on this.)  
    In the mid 90s I evaluated what I had learned in my teaching career (at that time nearly 20 years of teaching) and wrote it up in a manual I could use to teach a seminar to my doctoral candidates—I wanted them to learn how to develop themselves as teachers. Here is the Table of Contents of that Teaching Manual (red font).

Teaching as A Career–How To Develop Yourself For An Effective Ministry

Table of Contents-

Conclusion

Appendix A. The Notion of A Faculty Profile
Appendix B. Self-Study Growth Projects
Appendix C. Future Perfect Paradigm
Appendix D. Two Examples of Slot/Filler Matrices
Appendix E. Three Training Modes
Appendix F. Formations
Appendix G. Sample Grading Sections From Syllabi
Appendix H. Sample Syllabus—ML 530 Life Long Development
Appendix I. Illustrations
Appendix J. Attention Getters/ Closures
Appendix K. Spiritual Formations Listed
Appendix L. Study Guide for Markle’s Notes
Appendix M. Example Biographical Sheets for Courses
Appendix N. Taxonomies
Appendix O. Study Sheets/ Other Written Materials
Appendix P. Designing for Seminars and Workshops

All of my TAs have either gone through a cluster group mentoring seminar with me (using this manual) or studied it independently with some feedback sessions with me.

•   TEACHING—In the first 8 years TAs would sometimes give inputs. Today all of my TAs actually give two or more inputs during each ten week class. They choose the subject area they want to do. They have all my examples from the past. They do PowerPoints and Microsoft word inputs, which I get and which the class also gets. This is stressing a learning by doing approach—the experiential track of Holland’s two track model. I use Markle’s fading technique to get them starting to teach.

•   COACHING—I give help using the basic coaching approach: demonstrate, have them do it, tell them what was good and bad, demonstrate again, have them do it again, give help. Release them to do it on their own.

•   FEEDBACK—I have them learn to seek feedback on how well they are communicating. I teach them Rolf’s three-fold feedback approach: personal (I ask them to evaluation the strengths and weaknesses of their presentations and to email them to me);  pedestrian (ask some of the more astute students to give feedback on what they heard—strengths and weaknesses);  peer (feedback from someone who knows the material as much as they do—in this case—me.  Sometimes I do this formally—writing it up; other times I do it orally or even informally. As we are walking out of the class, I  almost always ask my TAs after class, “What did you learn about teaching?”)

•   OJT—LOTS OF SPONSORING—I am often invited to teach off campus. I usually turn these down and instead, I recommend my TAs for people who want teachers to teach my courses or speakers as workshops, seminars, or conferences or retreats or the like. I also work hard to sponsor my teaching assistants to teach my courses as they become proficient in them. I use whatever pull I have to get them teaching as adjuncts in on-line courses or at extension centers or even here at the main campus.
 

Here are some of the results so far after 12 years of trying to develop teachers. The following are proficient teachers of my courses. Some are master teachers, some are on their way to becoming master teachers. All are good teachers.

Course                                           Person                 
ML530 Life Long Development         ST, FH, WV, SS, BH, RG, BD, NE
ML560  Change Dynamics               DM
ML523 Mentoring                           ST, WV
ML524 Focused Lives                      SPT, UL
ML540 Leadership Training Models   UC, BH    
ML534 Value Based Leadership O.T. WV, FH
ML536 Value Based Leadership N.T. WV, FH
ML521 Developing Leadership Gifts  RC, BG, EJW

    I now use a modified team approach. Where possible my classes are team-taught. I try to have two TAs in a class but even with only one TA, we team-teach it.   My teaching assistant(s) interact with every facet of my teaching: 1. my pre-work in course design—syllabus and course matrix schedule and setting up of small groups and the grading groups; 2. my classroom teaching. Teaching Assistants come to every class and observe. Grading—the class is broken up into grading groups and the TAs and I alternate grading groups weekly. I do my weekly grading early-on and send them to the TAs so that the TAs can have examples of comments, how to grade, etc. Each of us sends our graded assignments to the other so that all graders have all items that been graded. I expect my TAs to be constantly observing what I do and how I do it. Let me say it again. All of us grade. All of us teach. The TAs contribute to evaluating and upgrading the courses. I could not teach that course without this kind of help.     

Blessings,
Bobby Clinton