Some people think that teaching is simply a matter of knowing the content material and having the right kind of personality and experience. In fact, research evidence suggests that people can become effective teachers if they learn:

• the content of their discipline
• the different ways students learn this content and the problems they face with it
• how to manage learning in practice in a classroom.

This MOOC focuses on the second and third of these elements.

The ways in which students learn in science and engineering programs, and the problems they typically face, have been the subject of a great deal of research in the last two decades. We have based this MOOC on that research evidence, with a focus on the ways in that teaching assistants can help students to maximise their learning in university-level programmes.