Teaching Associates' Programme (TAP)

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The Teaching Associates’ Programme runs each year. For information about what the course involves and how to apply, please visit https://www.cctl.cam.ac.uk/tap. If you still have questions, please contact the course director, Dr Meg Tait (mebt1@cam.ac.uk).

The Teaching Associate Programme (TAP) is a year-long programme which supports early career researchers who have some responsibility for teaching and learning. TAP is accredited by the Higher Education Academy (HEA), and, if you successfully complete all elements of the programme, you will become an Associate Fellow of the HEA. In order to be eligible for Associate Fellowship of the HEA, you will need to have a minimum of 40 hours’ experience of teaching and/or supporting learning.

Applications are open to Postdoctoral Researchers/Research Staff and PhD students in their 2nd year or above, from any subject area. Prior to applying for TAP we require you to have at least 20 hours of teaching and at least 20 more hours of confirmed teaching for the academic year to come. In this way, the programme enables you to reflect on your own current practice, to explore ideas and approaches for enhancing your teaching, and to think about your future development as a higher education professional. Only higher education (university-level) teaching experience can be considered.

The programme has a high level of flexibility and participants are expected to plan their TAP work to fit around other activities. However, there are several compulsory components which cannot be missed and those include: four seminars, teaching observations, tutorial and lecturing practical. Help and support is available throughout the year to enable students to get the best from the programme.

All PhD Students 2, 3+ & Postdoctoral Researcher/Research Staff

The Teaching Associates' Programme (TAP) will support you in extending your understanding of teaching and learning in your subject and at the level at which you teach. By the end of the programme, you should be able to:

• critically evaluate teaching, learning and assessment methods in your subject and at the level at which you teach, drawing on influential theories of learning and course design;
• articulate your own understanding of teaching, learning and assessment (your 'philosophy of teaching');
• develop a design for a teaching session or for a course that illustrates how you might apply this understanding in your own practice;
• devise and reflect critically on practical approaches to professional development, in order to extend your own understanding and improve your own practice.

For information about what the course involves and how to apply, please visit https://www.cctl.cam.ac.uk/tap.

“When I applied, I was hoping to share ideas about supervising and gain new ideas of activities to use. What I learnt was that it wasn’t that simple and there was a whole field of literature dedicated to trying to design effective teaching activities. It was great to collaborate, to see others teaching and read papers on the subject such that now I have a lot more confidence when creating supervising resources.”

“Tutor-group discussions provided an excellent space to share ideas and tips about how to approach teaching. Observations (of both myself and other TAP participants) were also very useful – an outside eye examining my teaching taught me a lot about aspects I could improve, and observing others gave me new ideas as well.”

“I applied for the course hoping to become a more confident and critical teacher and I have developed in both of these areas.”