Growing a garden from a single seed. Enhancing Graduate Teaching Assistants learning and teaching skills through an evolved, bespoke training course.

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are crucial to the smooth running of undergraduate tutorials and teaching laboratories; however, they are oftentimes exiled to superficial duties such as procedural instruction or enforcing health and safety. The reason for this ostracism often relates to their perceived lack of pedagogical training, appropriate guidance and the level of support provided for these novice academics. The initial aim of this research was to characterise the support required by Laboratory-based Graduate Teaching Assistants (LGTA) following an intrinsic case study methodology. This research was primarily undertaken in partial fulfilment for an MA in Higher Education and the emergent GTA pedagogical training course was subsequently validated as a structured PhD module. Continued in-depth analysis of the pedagogical skills gaps provided a rationale to develop a bespoke training course to assist and underpin the (L)GTAs development as novice academics. Upon completion, the effectiveness of this model of (L)GTA pedagogical training to suitably support (L)GTAs in their pedagogical development was evaluated by stakeholder survey and purposefully sampled interviews. Following post hoc analysis of the successful first iteration of training course design, develop and delivery; an action research module was adopted to further enhance the module from both a content and assessment perspective and to evaluate the impact of these changes. The impact of the GTA training course is analysed under key thematic headings and recommendations for practice offered.