There’s surprisingly little research on the effects of graduate student instruction on undergraduates and of teaching experience on graduate students’ eventual careers. But conventional wisdom suggests that seasoned faculty members make better undergraduate instructors and that graduate students benefit from more time spent on finishing their dissertations than on teaching. For those reasons and others, some institutions -- most recently Purdue University -- have taken steps toward increasing faculty-undergraduate interaction and limiting the use of graduate students as instructors. But what if those institutions have it backward, and graduate students are actually better ambassadors of their disciplines than full-time faculty members on and off the tenure track? What if the graduate students actually benefit in the long run from more teaching experience? New research on the impact of graduate student teaching on undergraduates and on graduate students’ preparation argues just that. And while the authors caution that their research is limited, they argue it may have significant implications for university policy.

March 8, 2016 ・ From Inside Higher Ed