Teaching

Teaching obligations are integral to preparing students for the world of professional academia, enabling students to begin teaching before starting professional careers and getting feedback on their own pedagogical development. Teaching in a department assigned position – whether as a Graduate Student TA (teaching assistant) or as a Graduate Student Lecturer in a free-standing course – count towards fulfillment of a student’s Pedagogical Training Plan. In certain cases, the department might request a student serve as a BA Undergraduate Preceptor. 
 

Cinema and Media Studies PhD students hold the following teaching appointments – 

• Year 3: one Graduate Student - TA position
• Year 4: two Graduate Student - TA positions
• Year 5: one Graduate Student Lecturer position
• Year 6: one Graduate Student Lecturer position

The remainder of the Cinema and Media Studies PTP can be fulfilled through completing programs run through the Chicago Center for Teaching. Students should begin these requirements during year 3, beginning with attending the Teaching@Chicago Orientation – a one-day workshop held during orientation week each Autumn Quarter. 

Teaching Outside of the Department

Teaching outside of the department – in the writing program, in the College Core, in the MAPH program, or in other departments (e.g., Art History, EALC, etc.) – can be counted towards a student’s PTP, but these must be approved by the DGS. Unless otherwise informed, the department will still anticipate a student holding all their PTP teaching commitments in CMS. Depending on their academic standing in the program or their fulfillment of milestones, the DGS might recommend deferring teaching assignments for a student; the DGS will discuss this possible outcome with any student prior to deferral.

Graduate Student TAs are expected to aid faculty members in courses in which the undergraduate enrollment is too large for faculty to effectively perform all aspects of instruction. TAs may be expected to attend class, read all assigned materials, hold office hours with students, lead a discussion section, review and comment on student assignments, and recommend grades. Cinema and Media Studies appoints TAs to our undergraduate-only classes, such as CMST 10100: Introduction to Film, CMST 14400: Film and the Moving Image, and to other College courses with a more specialized focus such as CMST 21004: Afrofuturism, CMST 26810: Agnes Varda, and CMST 25505: The Detective Film.

Students may also be appointed to mixed-level courses in the History of International Cinema sequence and the graduate-only courses CMST 40000: Methods & Issues in Cinema Studies and CMST 40001: Methods & Issues in Media Studies. 
 

Graduate students who are on-track with the program timeline will be asked during year 5 of the program to serve as a stand-alone lecturer for an undergraduate CMS course. While exact appointments vary from year-to-year, typically the courses which students teach are CMST 10100: Introduction to Film and CMST 14400: Film and the Moving Image.

Students entering year 6 of the program have two options for teaching in Cinema and Media Studies: they can either opt for a department assigned section of Introduction to Film or Film and the Moving Image or they can request to teach a self-designed course with another student entering year 6.

Students who hold a Dissertation Completion Fellowship (DCF) in year 6 are exempt from teaching obligations, though they can request to hold a teaching assignment during Spring Quarter of their DCF year with permission from the Dean of Students.