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Information for Guides

The aim of Pinnacle is to assist selected research students make the transition from student to academic in charge of a course. They do that by a mixture of observation, reflection, study and practice. Your role in the process as an expert guide is to exemplify good teaching practice, and to help your student understand "why" you do the things you do through regular discussion with them.

Your students will have many things to do within Pinnacle. In all, we're expecting them to spend 8-10 hours each week.

Here are the things we expect the guides to do:

• spend up to an hour per week (in semester) talking with the student about course-related issues: the course design, aims, expected student outcomes, assessment tasks, class management, giving lectures, giving tutorials or laboratories, marking, administrative issues (extensions, plagiarism, mark reporting, etc).
• allow your student to observe about 5 lectures
• allow your student to observe about 4 classes (tutorials or laboratories)
• allow your student to deliver 3-4 lectures
• allow your student to mark 6-8 assignment submissions
• allow your student to mark 6-8 exam papers
• commit to being part of the program for the entire semester
• tell us now if there is something unusual about your course - eg, no classes, no assignments, no exam, less than 50 students, only for graduate students, only runs over 7 weeks, etc - some of these we can work around
• let RSDC know if any difficulties arise with your student

We have deliberately capped the amount of teaching and marking we require of the student. If you wish them to do any more, that is fine with us, but in that case they must be employed by your area and paid for all hours they are required to work.

After selection of this semester's batch of Pinnacle students, we anticipate inviting their guides to RSDC before semester starts to go over expectations and answer any questions.

I hope this page answers some of your questions. If you have others, please don't hesitate to ask. You can also find some information on the pinnacle website.