Delivering a collaborative, discipline-specific, and equity, diversity, and inclusion-centered teaching assistant training program in the life sciences

ABSTRACT

A growing number of Canadian universities are implementing teaching assistant (TA) training programs designed to support graduate student teaching. At the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Life Sciences Institute (LSI) hosts one of several provost-funded, discipline-specific TA training programs on campus. At its core, the LSI TA Training Program is a partnership between senior TAs and faculty from multiple departments. Together, we design and deliver a TA training curriculum tailored for teaching in the life sciences that centers equity and inclusivity, while building a supportive community of emerging educators. In this paper, we provide a brief historical overview of the LSI TA Training Program and describe our embedded values and initiatives, including a flagship TA training “boot camp,” workshops, social celebration events, and a year-round mentorship initiative. We also present evidence showing that participation in our TA training program increases confidence in evidence-based teaching strategies, including creating inclusive, equitable classroom environments. We also discuss lessons learned in developing and sustaining such a cross-departmental TA training initiative, highlighting the benefits of faculty-student collaboration and our approaches to ensure our program is sustainable while adapting to evolving TA needs. Our experiences highlight that grounding discipline-specific TA training in inclusive teaching prepares new TAs with relevant, practical skills and supports their confidence to be inclusive educators in the life sciences.

PERSPECTIVE

The teaching assistant (TA) role is critical in higher education, with many institutions increasingly relying on highly skilled support from TAs to enhance the learning environment of undergraduate classrooms, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields (1, 2). TAs frequently serve as the primary points of contact for undergraduates, providing instruction in tutorials, labs, and during office hours, as well as through grading and providing feedback. Despite their essential roles and responsibilities, TAs are often placed in these positions without formal training (3–5). With TAs playing increasingly central roles in undergraduate teaching, there is a growing need for specialized TA training to prepare TAs to become integral members of the teaching community to support student learning (3, 6).

Many universities offer centralized TA training programs. For example, across Canada, several institutions offer multi-day or certificate-based TA development programs that include in-person, asynchronous, and blended training events (7). However, these programs vary widely in scope and focus. Some cover essential information about university policies and TA roles and responsibilities, while others emphasize pedagogy and evidence-based teaching strategies, including an awareness of inclusive and equitable practices to support diverse learners (4, 8, 9). At the University of British Columbia (UBC), there is a clear commitment to enhancing inclusive teaching quality by TA educators, as evident by the array of year-round workshops and initiatives for graduate TAs, hosted by UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology (CTLT) (10). While central TA support programs are invaluable, they seldom integrate pedagogy into the TAs own discipline. An ideal TA training model blends learner-centered, inclusive teaching strategies with discipline-specific content, empowering TAs to leverage their emerging expertise to translate and communicate complex concepts into accessible learning experiences for novice learners (6, 11–14).

To address this need, in addition to the university-wide TA training events run centrally through CTLT, UBC provides funding opportunities for developing discipline-specific TA training programs at the faculty and departmental level. In this paper, we describe one such initiative: the Life Sciences Institute (LSI) TA Training Program. Hosted within a multidisciplinary research institute, the LSI TA Training Program draws graduate student participants from a variety of graduate programs, with the majority coming from three core departments based in the LSI: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cellular and Physiological Sciences, and Microbiology and Immunology. Since its inception in 2016, the LSI TA Training Program has evolved significantly in scope, pedagogy, and leadership structure. Today, our program features a distributed leadership model wherein senior graduate students (individuals with substantial prior experience as a TA and a general interest in teaching and learning) and faculty mentors across all represented departments collaborate to design content, plan events, and mentor TA educators.

Herein, we briefly trace the program’s history and evolution. Then, we describe an overview of the current program, including the flagship “boot camp” event designed to support emerging educators in the life sciences. We discuss ongoing year-round mentorship activities for TAs at all stages of their development as teachers and share lessons learned from our collaborative efforts to co-host workshops with other TA training groups on campus and other social or celebratory events. We then share evidence of the program’s impact, focusing on participating TAs’ self-reported confidence in teaching competencies. Finally, we share our perspectives on creating a successful TA training program and address our future directions as we continue to enhance and evolve our program.

History and evolution of the Life Sciences Institute TA Training Program

The LSI TA Training Program at UBC was first developed in 2016 in response to a growing need to support graduate students working in the LSI who often found themselves teaching labs and tutorials with minimal preparation. Each year, approximately 80 new graduate students begin their graduate studies in research groups affiliated with the LSI (LSI staff members, personal communication). As part of their graduate training, many of these students are required to be TAs and are assigned to teach in undergraduate courses offered in their home departments. Early iterations of the LSI TA Training Program were initiated by faculty, and their efforts led to the creation of a handbook, which was circulated to new TAs as a standalone reference. To complement the handbook, experienced graduate students, funded by our institution’s TA Training Fund, launched a student-led, annual workshop to guide new TAs through the handbook’s key features. While these initiatives offered much-needed support to orient new TAs to their roles and responsibilities, the faculty and student-led components functioned separately, and training was offered once in a calendar year. We therefore redesigned the program into an integrated, year-round training model, one that unites faculty guidance and graduate-student leadership and delivers continuous, adaptable, and tailored support for TAs in the life sciences.

The new revised model for the LSI TA Training Program fostered genuine collaboration between senior graduate students (those with extensive TA experience) and faculty in steering the program. Our first step in this phase was a comprehensive needs assessment of everyone engaged in TA training to guide ongoing refinements. We gathered input from both faculty and graduate students to identify gaps in existing training. Through this process, we uncovered that new-to-teaching graduate students wanted more exposure to practical strategies for leading labs, active learning, grading strategies, and building inclusive learning environments relevant to courses in their discipline. Importantly, TAs consistently shared anxieties on how best to address the diverse needs of students in a culturally responsive and learner-centered manner. In response to this feedback, we restructured the program to make equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) principles an overarching theme throughout our events and workshops. We redesigned the pedagogical approach of our workshops to incorporate active learning strategies through case-based learning, allowing us to model effective teaching and facilitation. We designed real-world classroom scenarios to challenge participants and promote discussion of inclusive teaching practices. We also tailored the content to be more discipline-specific, ensuring TAs would be well prepared for the particular courses and teaching responsibilities they would undertake. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated shifts in our program’s content and delivery, prompting a greater focus on training for teaching online and navigating remote platforms. Not only that but teaching through the pandemic also made it abundantly clear that building a sense of community among TAs was crucial, prompting us to schedule more frequent small-group check-ins throughout the year. By hosting regular meetups, we offered just-in-time support to TAs as they carried out their teaching roles, giving TAs a chance to pivot and implement advice and new strategies into their teaching practices. Over the past several years, we have continued to refine the LSI TA Training program to better suit the needs of emerging educators in the life sciences. The program has been strengthened by refocusing on inclusivity in supporting TAs to build practical, discipline-specific skills in teaching.

In its current form, the LSI TA Training Program remains anchored by a “designed by students for students” ethos, efforts championed and supported by representative faculty members in a distributed leadership model (Fig. 1A). Our core leadership team consists of teaching-seasoned senior graduate students and faculty representing each of the three core departments; we work as partners and share responsibility for shaping the program. The leadership team meets regularly throughout the year to plan our events and develop both synchronous and asynchronous training materials and activities. A key benefit of the program’s structure is the ample opportunity for mentorship, professional development, and skill building. For example, faculty leaders guide senior TAs in the core leadership team as they refine their leadership abilities, and together, the core team mentors new-to-teaching graduate student participants. Once new TAs gain more confidence and experience, we recruit them as event facilitators and, ultimately, as leadership members, creating a sustainable, “feed-forward” cycle that continuously renews the program while providing continuity in programming. We have also successfully attained institutional and departmental support to sustain the program. Each year, we receive institutional financial support through UBC’s TA Training Fund and through the LSI; we have also attracted both financial and in-kind administrative support from each of the core departments involved (Fig. 1A). The institutional support enables us to pay both the senior graduate student leadership team members and the graduate students who deliver workshops and events year-round. Faculty leads contribute in-kind support, earning recognition for their educational leadership and building their professional portfolios through meaningful mentorship and program development roles.

Fig 1.

Overview of the Life Sciences Institute Teaching Assistant Training Program. (A) The program specifically caters to three distinct groups: new-to-teaching graduate students, senior graduate students, and faculty. The mentor-mentee relationships among these groups create opportunities for knowledge sharing and community building. The leadership of the program is a collaborative partnership between faculty members and senior graduate students. The program thrives due to strong support from both the institution and individual departments. (B) The tree serves as a metaphor for the structure and essence of our TA training program. The leaves and branches symbolize diverse programming developed and offered by our core leadership team. Each branch represents a different initiative that contributes to the growth and support of teaching assistants. At the apex of the tree is the annual boot camp event, which is bolstered by other key initiatives that form the supportive “branches” of our program: a mentorship program, celebration and feedback events, as well as our collaborative workshops. The roots of the tree represent the foundational values upon which our program is built, including STEM teaching and learning, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and community building. (C) The timeline represents the sequence of activities in our program, visually distinguishing between planning phases and event execution. Brown nodes are planning activities led by the core leadership team. During these phases, the team recruits new facilitators, assesses program needs, and designs the year’s events using feedback from TAs. Green nodes represent program events.

LSI TA Training Program—values and annual activities

The current program is rooted in three main values: EDI, discipline-specific pedagogical training for STEM teaching in the life sciences, and building community (Fig. 1B). We embed EDI principles across all training events, topics, and activities, helping TAs gain the necessary knowledge and skills to create and nurture inclusivity as a tenet of their teaching practices. This commitment to EDI is reflected in our program learning outcomes, which highlight inclusive grading and assessment strategies, as well as cultivating safe, welcoming classrooms (Appendix S1, see LOs highlighted in green). We tailor our content to the unique pedagogical demands of life science courses to ensure TAs gain teaching strategies relevant to lab, tutorial, and lecture settings. Finally, we strengthen community by hosting year-round events (Fig. 1C) and providing a comprehensive online hub through our institution’s learning management system, Canvas. This online Canvas hub serves as a “one-stop-shop” for TAs, housing curated resources, asynchronous training modules, while also enabling us to easily advertise our events and send announcements. Between training sessions, TAs can refresh their skills, complete pre-workshop assignments, and stay connected to ongoing development opportunities both within the department and across the institution. The following section offers a closer look at the LSI TA Training Program, including the flagship “annual boot camp,” which anchors much of the program and aligns closely with our overarching vision. Appendices S1-S6 offer a comprehensive guide for launching a discipline-specific TA training program at your institution. These resources are designed to support planning and implementation and include learning outcomes, detailed lesson plans, real-world teaching scenarios, a printable workbook, an interactive activity template, a feedback form, and sample needs assessment questions. In addition, the appendices provide a structured overview of mentorship programming and a checklist of key tasks to be completed before the academic year begins, during the year, and at its conclusion. Together, these materials will help you design and deliver an effective teaching boot camp, refresher session, and ongoing mentorship experience for your TAs. Below, we provide an overview of each program component and discuss its impact.

Annual boot camp

The core component of the program, our showpiece of the year, is a TA training “boot camp.” The annual boot camp is structured as a day-long event with themed mini-workshops, focus groups, and panel discussions. Each year, our boot camp addresses several core themes such as effective communication with learners and teaching teams, learner-centered teaching practices, and grading and assessment strategies, all through an EDI lens relevant to the life sciences courses our TAs will be expected to teach (15). Each session of the boot camp is designed around scenario-driven vignettes that reflect real-world challenges TAs might encounter. Each vignette is reviewed and updated annually based on feedback and emerging needs (selected scenarios are presented in Appendix S2a and S2b).

We craft the scenarios with the intention to illustrate difficult situations that, as experienced educators, we know TAs may face in their roles, and we aim to draw attention to how EDI explicitly connects with teaching in the life sciences (15). While these vignettes generate rich discussions during our workshops, we are mindful to facilitate them with care to ensure participants are not put on the spot to share personal stories. Instead, we encourage TAs to personally reflect on their responsibilities as educators and collaboratively brainstorm solutions to the often invisible or unspoken norms that perpetuate injustice within educational spaces (16–18). This approach promotes critical thinking and agile problem-solving skills that they can apply in their classrooms to create more inclusive and equitable learning environments (18). To deepen participant reflection on inclusive teaching practices, we provide participants with a post-boot camp exercise that asks them to reflect on their own personal and social identities and how their positionality might impact their teaching approaches in the classroom (Appendix S2b) (17, 19).

A key component of the boot camp is the focus group sessions, which are designed to tailor our training toward specific teaching contexts. Participants are divided based on the teaching roles they anticipate undertaking: teaching in lab courses, supporting large lectures, or facilitating tutorial sessions. In these sessions, senior TAs guide peers through real-world challenges specific to their teaching context by using scenarios drawn directly from the courses they teach. Our intent with these sessions is to provide practical, role-specific guidance and encourage participants to work together to develop solutions. Additionally, by working alongside peers facing similar TA responsibilities and teaching similar, if not the same course, we hope these sessions offer participants the opportunity to establish a support network, which has the potential to extend beyond the boot camp to provide ongoing support and a sense of community.

A highlight of our boot camp event is a senior TA panel discussion where experienced TAs from various departments are invited to share their insights, successes, challenges, and risks taken. Senior TAs address questions or concerns posed by participants in a supportive environment for open dialogue. We prime the discussions with questions such as (i) “Are there any lessons you’ve learned along the way that you wish someone had shared with you when you started?” (ii) “How do you approach giving constructive feedback to students in a way that encourages their growth?” Questions like these, along with questions from the participants, encourage candid conversations directly relevant to the teaching roles new TAs will face. This session not only offers valuable pragmatic perspectives for new TAs but also strengthens the sense of community for all TAs.

Throughout the boot camp, the core facilitation team models best teaching practices, highlighting various teaching techniques and active learning strategies. We often take a “meta” approach, inviting participants to pause and reflect on our pedagogical choices during the session, to reflect on the reasons why we have structured our workshop activities in a chosen way. This encourages participants to think about the workshop from a pedagogical perspective and how they can apply these strategies to their own teaching contexts (20). To further support personal reflection and accommodate diverse forms of engagement with the boot camp activities, we also provide a workbook for participants (Appendix S2b). This workbook offers a dedicated space for participants to reflect and write down their thoughts and responses, so that all TAs can meaningfully engage in a manner that best suits them.

It is worth noting that we also ask participants to prepare for the boot camp by engaging in select pre-boot camp activities, which include completing brief asynchronous tasks outlined in our Canvas hub. For example, in advance of our grading and assessment mini-workshop, participants are expected to grade a mock lab report assignment, which prepares them for a grading calibration activity led by an experienced TA facilitator during the event. These types of preparatory tasks allow participants to arrive ready to engage with the workshop content and maximize their learning experience throughout the boot camp. In addition, this ensures participants have enrolled in and actively engaged with the content featured on our online Canvas hub, so they are familiar with the array of resources that are available to them for ongoing support beyond the boot camp.

Mentorship program

For new TAs seeking additional and ongoing support, we offer a Mentorship program designed to pair new TAs with experienced, senior TAs to create a supportive, peer-led community of practice (Appendix S5). Creating the matching pairs is intentional; we aim to ensure that each new TA’s specific needs align with the expertise of their matched senior TA. Mentor-mentee pairs are encouraged to determine their own style and frequency of interaction. We suggest that mentor-mentee pairs observe each other in their teaching contexts and meet to exchange feedback and ideas. By tailoring the mentor-mentee pairs, participants can address discipline-specific and sometimes even course-specific questions and share ideas to address real-time challenges that arise with their teaching. Finally, we invite mentor and mentee participants to submit brief personal reflections of their mentorship experience to our program’s online Canvas hub. Once these activities are complete, each mentor and mentee receives a letter of completion, which serves as a valuable artifact for their emerging teaching portfolios. Overall, new TAs receive one-on-one support and gain confidence and practical strategies, while senior TAs are given the opportunity to sharpen their mentoring and communication skills.

Collaborative workshops

In addition to the annual boot camp and mentorship initiative, our program has branched out to organize and co-host several smaller events in collaboration with various TA training initiatives across UBC. We have found these partnerships to be invaluable, as they bring together graduate student educators from diverse disciplines, offering fresh perspectives on shared challenges, while also creating a broader sense of community among TAs across campus. For example, we have co-hosted two targeted training sessions with the Faculty of Land and Food Systems: one focused on grading and assessment and another on inclusive teaching. We have also co-hosted a career panel event centered on how the skills gained through TA experiences could be applied to a variety of job contexts. Finally, the senior TAs in our core leadership team regularly attend Community of Practice meetings facilitated by the CTLT, where graduate students in similar leadership roles across other TA training programs exchange strategies, discuss emerging needs, and share triumphs. In fact, it is often in these meetings that we meet like-minded educators involved in TA training and are inspired to collaborate, leading to new co-hosted events.

Refreshers, celebrations, and feedback events

Throughout the academic year, the LSI TA Training Program also hosts smaller, community-building events throughout the academic year, including regular casual check-ins and celebration gatherings. For instance, we host a skills refresher event at the start of our second term, which serves not only to catch up those who missed the annual boot camp but also to provide ongoing support to returning TAs seeking additional training and professional development (see Appendix S3 for example materials, including a lesson plan from a skills refresher event). In addition, we host a year-end celebration that doubles as a focus group, where TAs can share teaching tips, discuss challenges, and offer candid feedback on our programming. Through program funding, we offer lunch, snacks, and beverages to incentivize participation and create a truly celebratory atmosphere to connect and share teaching experiences. We gather everyone for a short circle discussion asking, “What’s one takeaway you’ll carry into your next TA role?” and “What’s one improvement you’d propose for this program?” We record these comments and later enter them into our program evaluation database. We have found that combining these informal social gatherings with a mechanism for giving and receiving feedback increases TA engagement and provides us with more meaningful feedback on the evolving needs of the community to help us better adapt and refine the program.

Impact: emerging teachers and senior TA facilitators

Each year, we assess the impact of our annual boot camp through pre- and post-boot camp online surveys. Before the bootcamp, participants reflect on their prior teaching experiences (if any), identify tasks they anticipate they will do in their upcoming TA positions, and assess their confidence in taking on said teaching role. After the boot camp, they revisit these reflections to identify any changes in their preparedness and confidence. Our survey also invites participants to provide feedback on the boot camp and the training program as a whole. The post-boot camp feedback is especially valuable to immediately capture participant impressions of our flagship boot camp training, helping us refine scenarios and identify future content to include, while also shaping our workshop programming for the year ahead.

By comparing responses from the pre- and post-boot camp surveys, we assessed the program’s effectiveness in advancing several of our core values and outcomes. Encouragingly, after participating in the boot camp, TAs reported increased confidence in their ability to implement active learning strategies (Fig. 2A) and in leading tutorials and labs specific to life science disciplines (Fig. 2B). Although the benefits varied between individual participants, with some new-to-teaching graduate students reporting no benefit from the workshop, most of the participants do self-report a net positive impact of the workshops on their teaching. A core tenet of the boot camp is to equip TAs with the knowledge and skills in inclusive teaching. We found that TAs also reported increased confidence in their ability to cultivate inclusive learning environments (Fig. 2C). Additionally, the post-boot camp survey also gauges participants’ interest in reserving a spot in the Instructional Skills Workshops (ISWs), hosted by CTLT (21). As part of our program, we cover the respective costs for those who sign up. Over the last 3 years, we have observed a noticeable uptick in TAs interested in reserving an ISW spot, demonstrating that our boot camp is propelling participants’ interest in furthering their professional development in teaching.

Fig 2.

Overview of impact on teaching assistants. Pre- and post-boot camp confidence level scores from 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024 across core components of TA roles and responsibilities in life sciences. The data are represented as box plots highlighting the median and interquartile ranges for each measure. Whiskers represent the maximum and minimum values for each measure, where a score of 1 indicates the respondent strongly disagreed with the statement and 5 when they strongly agreed. (A) Confidence in using active learning techniques. (B) Confidence in leading learning experiences, which includes facilitating tutorial discussions, demonstrating lab procedures, and answering learner questions. (C) Confidence in cultivating inclusive learning environments, ensuring equitable and inclusive learning experiences for all learners. Mann-Whitney test was performed, pre (n = 165) vs post (n = 71), P < 0.0001.

The overall impact of our TA training program is also well illustrated in the qualitative feedback we receive from participants after our smaller events, like the skills refreshers and workshops where we ask new-to-teaching participants, as well as senior TA mentor/facilitators, to comment on their experiences in engaging with our programming (Table 1). New TAs reflected that the experience boosted their confidence and that they “learned valuable teaching strategies” and “improve[d] as an instructor.” Several comments further identify specific and tangible takeaways from our events, including positive feedback on our scenario-driven approaches, grading and assessment strategies, and valuable lessons learned on inclusive teaching. Senior TAs commented that facilitating LSI TA Training events enhanced their growth as a teacher through “improv[ed] communication and interpersonal skills” and built their confidence to lead and effectively facilitate workshop discussions and apply evidence-informed pedagogies. Overall, the experiences reported by participants and facilitating TAs are overwhelmingly positive, which demonstrates that the LSI TA training program benefits both new and experienced TAs at all stages of their teaching trajectory.

TABLE 1.

Select quotes from participants and facilitators reflecting the impact of the LSI TA training program

Theme	Representative quotes
Building confidence and self-efficacy	“I was more prepared to face difficult situations (e.g., students asking for higher grades, how to engage students)” “By hearing others' stories, I feel I have a background of knowledge to better tackle things in the future” “Just being able to share my fears for the semester and determining solutions with the group (of new and experienced educators)” “I learned a lot of valuable teaching strategies, and the events helped me improve as an instructor” “Improving communication and interpersonal skills” (workshop facilitator)
Grading and assessment strategies	“I will keep some of the grading tips in mind (marking question by question, for example)” “Setting guidelines for my tutorials, set concrete guidelines for the rubric before you start grading” “The way to address issues in grading with students and instructors as that was something I was unsure about” “Tips to help with grading & biases!” “Strategies to ensure that you are grading fairly and holding space for students with different learning needs/preferences/backgrounds” “I enjoyed receiving some helpful tips on making marking more efficient, i.e., making a feedback word doc”
Scenario-based problem-solving skills	“Real-life situations that TAs have previously encountered and how they dealt with them” “I like the real-life scenario sections where we can discuss about different aspects when approaching an issue” “Learning about different scenarios that could arise & how they can be addressed”
Building community and collaboration	“Networking with people with similar goals” “It’s fun to collaborate and figure out solutions with peers!” “Hearing the perspectives of experienced TAs and lecturers, brainstorming with other folks about unique problems” “Sharing previous experiences and see how eye-opening they are for the new TAs” (workshop facilitator)
Fostering inclusive teaching practices	“Inclusive teaching, since it helped me to communicate with students and teach them properly”

Finally, we can assess the impact of our mentorship program through the reflections shared either through our Canvas hub or anecdotally at our mentorship program meet-up events and online. Senior TA mentors have shared how fulfilling and rewarding they find the experience of interacting with and supporting new TAs as they prepare for their first teaching role. One of the strengths of the program reported by mentees in their reflections is that it allows them to consolidate a “tool kit” of tips and tricks based on observing their mentor’s teaching. Mentees are encouraged to accompany their mentors on-the-job and observe interactions between the instructor, TA (their mentor), and students in a classroom setting or lab. Mentees frequently report that the experiences in the mentorship program are invaluable in helping them understand the responsibilities of a TA and gaining confidence in preparing for future TA roles.

Collectively, these data and reflections suggest that the LSI TA training program, including our flagship event, smaller workshops, and mentorship program, is effective in helping new-to-teaching TAs gain confidence to implement effective teaching strategies to build inclusive and engaging learning experiences for undergraduates in the life sciences. Likewise, the opportunities for senior TAs to participate in mentoring and facilitation activities are valuable for their growth in leadership and furthering their professional development in teaching.

Final perspective and future directions

Having built a successful TA training program, we feel we have identified several key takeaways that can inform the development of similar initiatives. Central to our program’s success is its structured, distributed leadership, which spans multiple departments with similar disciplinary contexts for teaching, and the partnership between faculty and senior graduate students. This distributed approach not only lightens the workload but also disrupts traditional academic hierarchies, creating a more inclusive and collaborative environment. The program is also designed to be sustainable, in part due to the mentorship and gradual entry into the core leadership team, and in part due to the continued financial support from the provost’s office, the LSI, and departmental support.

We take a value-centered approach for supporting learners, new-to-teaching graduate TA mentees, and senior TA facilitators and mentors alike. Our commitment to EDI is intentionally woven throughout our workshops, flagship events, leadership teams, and communities of practice. The LSI TA Training Program successfully prepares TAs for their first teaching roles while building their capacity to implement inclusive educational practices. Furthermore, the very nature of our leadership and delivery model encourages personal reflection on positionality in teaching and leadership and invites intentional discussions around designing equitable learning environments and EDI principles in academia in general. We strongly believe that it is vital to have EDI front and center and to instill these values in graduate students as they become the next generation of scientists and scholars.

As part of our feed-forward sustainability strategy, mentees, including both faculty and students, are empowered to become mentors themselves. They take on roles as facilitators, panelists, and contributors to the program’s direction, ensuring the ongoing growth and resilience of our training initiatives. Additionally, combining celebratory events with needs assessments and hosting more frequent gatherings allow us to stay attuned to the evolving needs of our TAs. This continuous feedback loop enables us to annually refine and adapt the program based on emerging challenges and participant input.

As a program, we will continue evolving and growing based on the needs of our TA community, and we also value our continued learning. We foresee three priority areas of growth for the LSI TA Training Program to better address new challenges on the horizon to support our graduate teaching assistants.

1. Support for undergraduate TAs: As undergraduate students increasingly take on TA roles, there is a growing need for training tailored to their unique challenges. This training will include sessions on ethics and navigating conflicts of interest, building confidence, and covering essential topics, such as grading, assessment, and inclusive teaching practices, ensuring we continue to bridge the gap between content and pedagogical knowledge and skill building (22). Additionally, we intend to assess the needs of undergraduate TAs using the same mechanisms we use to assess graduate student TAs to better understand their perspectives and needs. This engagement will inform how we create support structures specific to undergraduate TAs to help them become effective members of teaching teams.

2. Course-based undergraduate research experience training: Several undergraduate programs in the life sciences at UBC include capstone course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) (23), including in experimental microbiology and a data science-driven CURE in microbial ecology (24, 25). TAs require specialized training to teach in CUREs (26–29). These sessions will focus on delivering constructive feedback, leading research teams, offering appropriate levels of support, and providing strategies to help undergraduate learners develop scientific thinking and other essential scientific skills.

3. Indigenous pedagogies and supporting Indigenous students: As non-Indigenous educators, we recognize the importance of responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, which serve as a wake-up call highlighting the inadequacies of colonial education systems in supporting Indigenous learners (30). To address this, we are working toward increasingly weaving the principles of Indigenous pedagogies into our TA training program, guided by the 4Rs framework—Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, and Responsibility (31). Our long-term goal is to ensure that our TA program contributes to the broader goals of reconciliation in higher education (32). Through this, we hope to delve more deeply into supporting TAs on how to create not just safe, culturally responsive classrooms, but anti-oppressive ones.

One final note about how to initiate a TA training program like ours, which has a focus on your discipline and is inherently bespoke and flexible to provide support for what your community needs in the moment. Start by gathering a small circle of champions: faculty who care about mentoring, graduate students who love to teach, and staff who want everyone to succeed. We found momentum once we found each other—working to build a program around shared values and genuine enthusiasm for teaching and strengthening the TA community. Begin by consulting with faculty and students to assess the immediate needs that are not currently being met efficiently at your institution. What are some of the key discipline-specific, new-to-teaching TA training gaps within your unit? We recommend launching your program with a single signature event, such as a day-long boot camp for new-to-teaching TAs. Use that event to build momentum, recruit enthusiastic future leaders, and gather immediate feedback. As you celebrate successes and refine your event, the workload stays manageable (and fun) because you are sharing responsibility across a team. From there, let smaller events and a peer-mentorship program grow organically, always guided by regular needs assessments (coupled with social events) and impact surveys to keep your programming both relevant and sustainable.

In summary, our experience demonstrates that a graduate student-led, faculty-supported TA training model, grounded in equity, inclusivity, and focused on pedagogical training relevant to teaching in the life sciences, can effectively empower TAs and build confidence as emerging educators in their discipline. As we continue to evolve our program in response to emerging needs and feedback, we remain committed to building an adaptable, sustainable program that not only prepares TAs for their current roles but also shapes the next generation of inclusive, reflective scholars, mentors, and educators.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

The following material is available online at https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00047-25.

Appendix S1. jmbe.00047-25-s0001.docx.

LSI TA Training Program learning objectives.

Appendix S2a. jmbe.00047-25-s0002.docx.

LSI TA Training Program Bootcamp lesson plan and challenging scenario examples.

Appendix S2b. jmbe.00047-25-s0003.pdf.

LSI TA Training Program Bootcamp participant workbook.

Appendix S3. jmbe.00047-25-s0004.docx.

LSI TA Training Program refresher event.

Appendix S4. jmbe.00047-25-s0005.docx.

Example feedback form.

Appendix S5. jmbe.00047-25-s0006.docx.

LSI TA Training Program mentorship program.

Appendix S6. jmbe.00047-25-s0007.docx.

Checklist for creating a TA training program like ours.

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