Teaching atmospheric sciences: A graduate course

A graduate course was developed for advanced graduate students that discussed approaches for teaching atmospheric sciences and provided tools needed for students to develop skills in teaching. Each student participating developed a teaching portfolio that they can use to organize, document, and track their teaching experience. The course was presented as a seminar with topics covered including developing course materials, fundamentals of being an effective teacher, identifying and developing a teaching style, technology in the classroom and ethics in teaching. A group project required the students to identify teaching resources and to develop a database teaching resource for current and future Department of Atmospheric Sciences (DAS) faculty and graduate students. The students observed the classrooms of several instructors in DAS after which a roundtable discussion was conducted. The course culminated in students preparing and teaching a "class" to the group.