Orientation for New International Teaching Assistants/Graduate Instructors (ONITA)

• Takes place during the week before the start of the regular semester.
• Required for all new international graduate students before their first semester of teaching or assisting with teaching at MU.

If you have successfully completed EL 9437: Instructional and Communication Strategies for Effective College Teaching, you are exempted from orientation because EL 9437 goes into even greater depth about college teaching.

Orientation Activities

At the orientation, ITAs

• review the principles of effective teaching,
• learn about the cultural practices of American college classes/labs and the discourse strategies used in MU classrooms and
• practice those principles in microteaching sessions.

Your orientation instructors will include expert faculty and instructors, experienced ITAs and MU undergraduates. Participants have found the orientation sessions to be extremely helpful in preparing for their actual teaching assignments.

Registration

The academic program in which you will be teaching is responsible for pre-registering you for the Orientation for New International Teaching Assistants (ONITA). If you haven't received information about the orientation and you are hoping to teach in the upcoming semester, please contact your hiring academic program immediately.

Students will be given a certificate after successful completion of the program.