The teaching assistant (TA) plays a large role in the undergraduate teaching experience, with responsibilities varying from grading assignments and taking attendance to holding office hours, designing and presenting lectures, and writing exams. Given the many obligations that both professors and TAs must fulfill in academia, positive and effective interactions between faculty and TA can help all class members have a successful and productive experience. Negative interactions, on the other hand, can be stressful for faculty and TAs, and can negatively affect the effectiveness of the teaching team and the resulting teaching product. Therefore, concerted efforts should be made to ensure that these interactions are positive experiences for everyone involved. |
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The TA Experience (1993) has many suggestions regarding how this relationship can be nurtured or improved. First, make sure that the roles and expectations of each member are explicitly discussed at the beginning of the course. This is particularly relevant in regard to TAs. When these roles are not clearly stated, TAs can often feel as though they must try to infer what their responsibilities are, which can in turn affect the level of confidence they exude when performing classroom duties and their commitment to their tasks. Therefore, faculty/TA interactions may benefit from clear guidance by the faculty mentor. Other recommendations for improving faculty/TA interactions are outlined in Clyde Herreid’s discussion in The TA Experience of viewing the TA experience as an apprenticeship. Once a week, he meets with his teaching assistants for a planning and debriefing session to talk about what worked, what didn’t, how to improve in the future, and what the next week will hold. At this meeting, teaching questions and class concerns are addressed. When a decision is required, a TA group vote is taken and the teaching team collectively decides. These teaching meetings bring to light many teaching issues and allow time for discussion of the issues of grading, exam design, and academic integrity. In this way, the TA feels included and motivated, and the faculty member receives important feedback and assistance so that he or she can effectively lead the current class and shape the direction of future classes as well. Another recommendation that Herreid provides is to ask each TA to choose one lecture topic to cover, and the assistant receives guidance from the faculty member when outlining, preparing, practicing, and finally giving the lecture. He also involves honor’s undergraduate students in the implementation of the course. Overall, the author concludes that the graduate assistants “see themselves as part of a collaborative enterprise where they determine much of the course’s policies and direction,” while the professor observes that this system of positive interactions has “brought me immeasurable satisfaction and produced a decided improvement in the education of both students and TAs.” Resource: |
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