The ability to teach is an important skill for all scientists, not only for those who plan to teach after completing their degrees. Teaching skills include the ability to communicate technical material ranging from elementary to advanced, and to communicate technical material to audiences ranging from general to specialized. Thus, we expect students to develop and exercise teaching skills as part of their graduate education.
Students have ample opportunities to present advanced material while working on research projects, by participating in research seminars and by giving practice conference talks. To gain experience in presenting more elementary material, we require that all graduate students help teach two courses. The norm is for students to teach one introductory-level undergraduate course and one advanced-level undergraduate course. Current policy (which is subject to change) is that graduate star-courses in the Computer Science Department with an enrollment of 30 or more are also eligible for TA credit.
It is important that all teaching that is to count towards the teaching requirement must be assigned and approved in advance by the responsible administrator, which is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education for undergraduate courses, and the Director of Graduate Programs for graduate courses. Students' preferences will be taken into account, but cannot always be honored.
We encourage students to teach more than twice. At the semi-annual evaluation of students the faculty give special recognition to those who do an outstanding job as a TA and to those who teach beyond the required load. SCS offers a TA workshop which we encourage students to take advantage of.