The mandate of the Tomlinson Project has always been the enhancement of education offered to undergraduate students by improving available teaching resources. With this goal in mind two initiatives were created under the umbrella of T-Pulse: the Tomlinson Engagement Award for Mentoring (TEAM) and the Tomlinson Education Award for Change (TEACH). As of the 2021-22 academic year, the two initiatives were merged under the name of TEAM. By doing so Tomlinson is expanding the definition of the mentorship program to include support offered by participants to both their undergraduate peers and to course instructors. Appropriate tasks include:
- Helping to lead discussion groups
- Assisting with scantron viewings
- Question monitoring on the Course Discussion Boards
- Contributing questions for exam review
- Meeting with students one-on-one
- Assisting with tutorials
- Evaluating a course or laboratory at the pedagogical level
- Developing new, innovative strategies and/or material to enhance course/curriculum delivery or assessment
Course instructors wishing to participate in the program should identify one or more quality students from a very recent offering of the class or laboratory who have a marked interest in teaching/learning and educational improvement. For their efforts, the student course consultants (aka mentors) will receive a modest award ($300 for ~25-30 hours/semester for their activities, not taxed). The TEAM award will be included on students' co-curricular records. TEAM awardees must also be a registered McGill student, (undergraduates only) and remain registered throughout the semester in which they receive the award. For additional details please refer to the TEAM Course Instructor Outline:
TEAM Course Instructor Outline
In the year (2021-2022), approximately 1,000 TEAM awardees were allocated for 190 courses. The feedback from the instructors was excellent and to date, all instructors are looking forward to the renewal of this program and continued participation. In the Fall of 2021 Professor Nikolas Provatas of the Physics Department said "I cannot stress enough how absolutely vital TEAM has been, and continues to be, to me to be able to deliver an interactive environment to my hundreds of students, who resonate so well with peer-to-peer instruction methods afforded by TEAM mentors; without it, we would be thrust into a “teaching dark ages”, so to speak."
Please note that applications are now prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis due to a stricter and limited budget. We are now accepting TEAM applications for the Fall 2023 and Winter 2024 sessions. When applying, the TEAM application form below MUST be used. Please submit a Word version for easier processing, rather than a PDF.
Each instructor or team of instructors will be responsible for the selection of students, for definition of the TEAM member’s responsibilities, and to sign off at the end of the term verifying that the Awardee performed their tasks as requested. Students will be given their Award by a transfer to their bank account upon receipt of the instructor’s approval at the end of the course. Instructors are asked to remind students to set up Direct Deposit with their bank in Minerva.
Please note that application forms must be sent in by the instructors and not by students.
For questions about this program please contact Dr David Harpp at david.harpp [at] mcgill.ca or Lina Mullings at tomlinson.project [at] mcgill.ca. Applications for TEAM awardees must be sent to both email addresses.