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TA Orientation Any Time

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If you have an upcoming assignment as a teaching assistant at Stanford, TA Orientation Any Time (TAO Any Time) is a self-paced online course introducing you to the fundamentals of effective pedagogy for teaching assistants.

This interactive online course will introduce you to evidence-based frameworks and provide a space for you to apply these frameworks to your own teaching context. 

Enroll in TAO Any Time

Completing TAO Any Time

TAO Any Time is intended to provide a comprehensive introduction and welcome to being a teaching assistant at Stanford. The Center for Teaching and Learning also holds an in-person TA Orientation. This Canvas course is intended to provide an asynchronous option for those who are unable to attend the in-person event.

Some graduate students at Stanford are required to attend TA Orientation by their departments. To replicate the in-person experience, we recommend that you complete at least three modules and score at least an 80% on the final assessment for each one. Each module should take you about 30 minutes to complete. 

We manually send completion verification emails for TAO Any Time once each quarter, so you will not receive a verification email immediately upon completion. Thank you for your understanding. 

You have your choice of which modules to complete in TAO Any Time, including: 

  • Teaching Practices to Foster Inclusion: Classroom Norms
  • Collecting Student Feedback for Inclusion and Equity
  • Facilitating Discussions in the Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Writing to Engage Students
  • Office Hours and Review Sessions
  • Grading Problem Sets, Labs, and Exams
  • Promoting Mental Health and Well-being in Learning Spaces
  • Facilitating Discussions in Science and Engineering

For questions about TA Orientation Any Time, please contact Nakisha Whittington at nakishaw at stanford dot edu.