Moving from the One and Done to a Culture of Collaboration: Revising Professional Development for TAs

In thfis article, we argue for a model of TA professional development that is collaborative with TAs themselves, ongoing throughout a TA’s time in graduate school, and distributed across departmental and institutional locations. We present an example of a sustained professional development program for experienced TAs teaching composition at a large state university. Seeking to address the gap in TA professional development scholarship that extends beyond initial training and the composition practicum, we profile the professional development programs implemented during our tenures as WPAs over the course of two years. The programs designed were based on surveys and focus group interviews and, as such, responded to local needs and increased TA buy-in in the programming offered.