Jumpstart to Teaching Skills

Jumpstart to Teaching Skills
August 3-14, 2026

BU Medical Campus

Jumpstart to Teaching Skills (J2TS) is designed to provide graduate students and postdocs – especially those with limited or no opportunities to be teaching assistants, teaching fellows, or postdocs with teaching responsibilities – with foundational knowledge and skills related to teaching and teaching-intensive faculty roles in the future. It is designed for those interested in a wide variety of future career paths:

  • Those who plan on becoming faculty with a research lab, wanting to know how to lecture well and apply teaching and learning principles in your teaching and mentoring
  • Those who plan to teach for a significant portion of their faculty career, and want to develop essential skills now to prepare for the future
  • Anyone interested in industry, government, and non-profit careers where training and teaching others may be part of what you may do, including training others or creating environments where employees can learn or develop new knowledge and skills

To be eligible, an applicant must be a current BU doctoral student (post passing their qualifying/comprehensive exam(s)) or a BU/BUMC/BMC postdoc at the time of the J2TS program. Additionally, to receive the digital badge participants must complete the J2TS requirements as listed below, and therefore applicants need to be able to attend/complete all required sessions, practice lessons, and other components.

Schedule at-a-glance

  • August 3-6: Required in-person sessions
  • August 10: due date for online, asynchronous required modules
  • August 7: Practice teaching guided work session
  • August 10-12: Practice teaching, small-group setting
  • August 17: due date for online, asynchronous elective modules

Download the full August 2026 schedule.

There is a cap on enrollment in the program at 25 total. In-person sessions might be opened up to those not in the program on a session-by-session basis if there is space, but participation is limited to 25.

Apply today!

 

Key Facts

  • Offered in August 2026 on the BU Medical Campus (rescheduled from June 2026), but open to any BU advanced doctoral student (post passing your qualifying/comprehensive exam(s)) and any BU-CRC, BUMC, or BMC postdoc
  • Attend all required sessions scheduled for August 3-6 2026 (10:30am-12pm and 1pm-2:30pm)
  • Attend one of three sessions called “Practice Teaching Guided Work Session” to review your plans for your practice teaching and refine your plan and documents
  • Practice Teaching Session: pick one of several options
  • Locations are to be announced at a later date (on the BU Medical Campus); required sessions will be in-person only, while there will be options for a limited Zoom-based guided work session and limited Zoom practice teaching sessions

What’s Involved?

Jumpstart to Teaching (J2TS) is composed of daily required sessions (in person), required supplemental Blackboard Ultra modules for a few of the in-person sessions, and elective asynchronous modules in Blackboard.

Participants are also asked to teach a 20-minute maximum practice lesson/lecture during the second week. There are options to teach your practice lesson in-person or via Zoom. This requires signing up for one two-hour block to teach your lesson and participate in providing feedback to your peers.

PhD Progression, Doctoral Level 1 Pathway Equivalency (for doctoral students)

Our Jumpstart to Teaching Skills intensive program is designed to align with the Teaching Skills Level 1 doctoral Pathway in our PhD Progression program. Note that the online curriculum for the Teaching Skills, Level 1 doctoral pathway is being updated this semester to align with the J2TS summer intensive program This is open to PhD students and other dissertating doctoral students at BU (any campus), and completing the J2TS in-person program will result in completing the Level 1 doctoral pathway badge.

For postdocs, those who complete J2TS will earn a Postdoctoral Teaching Skills badge, based on the Teaching Skills Level 1 badge, currently in development.

To be eligible for either badge/certificate, participants must successfully participate in and complete the following:

  • All required in-person sessions
  • All required modules in the J2TS Blackboard site (available one week in advance) and three elective modules
  • Teach a 15-20 minute practice lesson/lecture to a small group of your peers. This includes a requirement to stay for the whole two-hour block to provide peer feedback to others in that session.

Note that this is not for academic credit and is not recorded on a transcript.

In-Person Sessions

Participants need to attend each session in person. Sessions can be recorded on request for those that cannot attend live sessions, however, additional work will be required to make-up for missed in-session activities.

NOTE: A simple lunch will be provided Monday through Thursday for J2TS participants from 12pm-1pm, and you can feel free to stay in our room or use the time to run to your lab/office or any meetings you may have.

Do I have to attend every session?

No. You can attend as many or as few of sessions and modules as you would like. Everyone is asked to complete the Orientation Module. The attendance requirements apply to those who are interested in the corresponding digital badge. However, you must complete the required sessions and modules at a minimum to participate in the practice teaching sessions.

Questions?

Please contact Lauren Easterling, easterli@bu.edu.