The University of Florida Orientation for New Graduate Teaching Assistants takes place in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom. Here’s the iPhone panorama I shot from the back of the auditorium before I made my presentation at the 2011 orientation.

I know a new school year is about to start when it’s time to work on the presentation that I’ll be making as part of the University of Florida’s Orientation for New Graduate Teaching Assistants.

Dr. Ken Gerhardt, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Graduate School, and Dr. Winifred Cooke, Teaching Center Director in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, coordinate the program, and have invited me to be one of the presenters.

I’m delighted to be part of the program. My topic is “Your Syllabus and the First Week of Class.” As part of being a presenter, each of us is asked to develop a handout to be part of the packet of information the teaching assistants receive. I wanted to be able to include the URL to this teaching blog, so I’m launching the blog today.

You can see from the number of grad students in the photo that UF counts on teaching assistants to be an important part of university instruction. This was the group who attended the orientation last year. Typically UF has about 350 to 400 new teaching assistants each year. I’m glad to help them have a good start to their UF teaching.