The Department of Agronomy at Purdue has and continues to have a commitment to teaching in the Soil Sciences. For decades the department has maintained a core group of three soils science faculty with 70 to 80% teaching appointments. Offices of these faculty are next to each other to facilitate discussion, brainstorming, sharing of ideas and of responsibilities. In addition to the several courses for which each is responsible, they have worked closely to develop and teach multimedia courses with over 40 hours of open laboratory and multiple sections of discussion sessions. These courses have provided a wonderful opportunity to provide substantive teaching experiences for our graduate students, as tutors in the resource centers, as instructors of discussion sessions and as participants in weekly planning and critique sessions with the teaching teams. Each year, a number of graduate students request the opportunity to join these teams of faculty and students as part of their educational experience. In addition, until a few years ago, we also conducted national searches and actively recruited graduate students as teaching assistants. These searches allowed us to target individuals who sought faculty positions with primary teaching responsibilities. Over 20 former graduate instructors in this program have obtained primary soils and crops teaching positions across the U.S. The strategy of recruiting graduate students on primary teaching assistantships may not be appropriate in today's research focused environment. However, at Purdue we still feel a strong commitment to providing a meaningful teaching experience for our graduates by offering shorter term teaching experiences to a larger number of graduate students. Two former teaching assistants will discuss the impact of their graduate teaching experience on their careers.