GUIDE FOR TEACHING ASSISTANTS,
TUTORS, AND READERS IN
THE DIVISION OF BIOLOGICAL
SCIENCES
University of California, San Diego
Division of Biological Sciences
Revised August 2012
2
INTRODUCTION
We hope that this handbook will be a practical, useful resource for you while you are a teaching
assistant or tutor at UCSD and on into the future if you teach in other places. Teaching is a very
special part of any university's mission, and by becoming a TA or tutor you truly are entering a
new phase in your relationship with UCSD. As a student, you have been a consumer of
UCSD's educational "products." As a TA or tutor, you will be generating those products. In
addition, you are moving from the role of a student--one person in what may be a large group-to the role of the teacher who has the primary responsibility for what happens in your classroom.
You have both the power and the responsibility to help your students to learn the course
material, and you wield the ultimate power over them: you help to determine their grades. You
must use that power carefully, wisely, and respectfully.
As a TA or tutor, you will have a wonderful opportunity to improve your communication skills,
and those skills will stand you in good stead for the rest of your time at UCSD and in whatever
you do after you leave UCSD. Please make the most of this opportunity.
You may find that teaching will challenge you as few other experiences at UCSD have. It also
can provide rewards that enrich your life as few other experiences can. To help you to perform
successfully in this new role, we want to provide as much information and support as we can-that's our goal for the initial training session, for your mid-quarter workshop, and for this
handbook. Please refer to this handbook often as you teach, and if you discover that you wish
we had included something more in the book or in your training, please do let me know. I and
the Senior TAs want to help you to do your very best and to have a wonderful time along the
way.
I wish you a great adventure as you encounter the challenges and rewards of teaching. I would
love to hear how it goes for you, and I'll be checking with you at the end of the quarter. Please
respond to my message!
Kathleen French, Ph.D.
Faculty TA Advisor
3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. A biology TA/tutor's instructional role
Page
General comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Time expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 4
Coursework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Course Credit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
TA evaluations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Typical teaching assistant/tutor responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. In lecture classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2. In lab classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
Resources for TAs and tutors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Frequently asked questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
II. Suggestions for effective teaching
Great advice from TAs at UCSD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Working with the professor in your course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Working with your students. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
What do I need to do for that important first day of class? . . . . . . . . . . 19
1. Meet with your professor before classes begin . . . . . . . . . . 19
2. What should I do DURING my first class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Methods and strategies for effective teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1. Supporting a lecture class with discussion sections . . . . . . 22
2. Teaching in a laboratory class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3. Lecturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4. Using a blackboard effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
5. Skillfully asking questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6. Getting feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
7. Getting the most out of office hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
8. Constructing exams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
9. Grades and grading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
III. Ethical behavior and integrity of scholarship
Ethical principles and behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Preventing and responding to sexual harassment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Academic integrity and what to do if you suspect cheating . . . . . . . . .44
IV. Recent evaluation forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
V. Brief summary of principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4
I. A BIOLOGY TA/TUTOR'S INSTRUCTIONAL ROLE
A GENERAL DESCRIPTION
A teaching assistant/tutor at the University of California, San Diego is a registered graduate or
undergraduate student chosen for his or her excellent scholarship and promise as a teacher.
Teaching assistants serve as instructional apprentices under the tutelage and supervision of a
faculty member. In the Division of Biological Sciences, the teaching assistant/tutor program is
intended to be an important part of the graduate and undergraduate students' training.
A TA/tutor does not have primary responsibility for the instructional content of a course, for
setting course policy, for selection of student assignments, for writing examinations, or for
assigning grades.
Under faculty supervision, the duties of a TA/tutor may include leading discussion sessions;
assisting in teaching laboratory classes; holding office hours; conducting review sessions;
assisting instructors in designing courses; helping to prepare course materials and exams;
proctoring exams; grading students' papers, homework and exams; maintaining records of
students' grades for assignments; and supervising other course assistants (readers, proctors,
and tutors.)
Because of their special role in supporting the instructional mission of the University, all TAs and
tutors must comply with all relevant University regulations, which prohibit sexual harassment,
misuse of University property, substance abuse, and any violations of the law. (For details,
refer to the UCSD Policies and Procedures Manual, available on-line.)
HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU OWE THE DIVISION?
Training
Both the Division of Biological Sciences and the University of California require that all TAs and
tutors must be trained before they assume responsibility for instructing students. TAs/tutors in
laboratory courses must also have completed the Division's required safety training.
Before the first time that a TA/tutor leads a discussion section in a lecture course, he or
she must participate in a half-day workshop, organized by the Division, in which critical
University policies are described. In addition, some basic principles of teaching will be
introduced during this training session. For first time laboratory TAs, a special Lab
Orientation session is required.
Following the initial training session, all students who are TAing for course credit (either
BGGN 500 or BISP 195) must attend and participate in one additional workshop during the
quarter in which they teach. Most workshops will be scheduled in the 4th, 5th, or 6th weeks of
the quarter. The workshops vary from quarter to quarter, and information about available
workshops will be provided near the beginning of the quarter in which you are teaching.
Alternatively TAs can contact Dr. Kathy French ([email protected]) with questions.
CAUTION: If for any reason you do not attend one of the TA workshops AND the professor you
are teaching with intends to assign you a passing grade for the quarter, you will earn a grade of
"Incomplete" for BGGN 500 or BISP 195. You can change that Incomplete to a passing grade
by attending a mid-quarter TA workshop during the following quarter, and it will be important for
5
you to take the initiative in providing evidence that you made up the workshop, because all
Incompletes turn into failing grades at the end of the quarter after you received the grade of
Incomplete.
Time spent on the course you are teaching
The workload for TA/tutors is set by a collective bargaining agreement with the union that
represents paid TAs. Graduate TAs with a 50% appointment are expected to work 220 hours
per quarter (i.e., an average of 20 hours per week for the quarter plus finals week).
Undergraduate TAs with a 25% appointment are expected to work 110 hours per quarter (i.e.,
an average of 10 hours per week). The actual work time may vary from week to week,
depending on what is going on in the course, but the total number of hours should not greatly
exceed these values. TA/tutors are responsible for keeping an accurate record of their
work hours, and they should consult with the professor who is leading the course if they
are spending so much time that they are in danger of exceeding these time limits.
TA/tutor responsibilities start at or before the beginning of the quarter, when TAs/tutors meet
with their instructors to discuss class content, the format of the class, and the specific duties of
TA/tutors in the class. In the case of laboratory courses, TAs must also know how to carry out
the lab exercises that they will help to teach, which may require additional training time.
TAs and tutors should contact the course instructor before the first day of class if the instructor
hasn't contacted them first.
COURSE CREDIT
Graduate student TAs are enrolled in BGGN 500 for 4 hours of credit and are graded on an S/U
basis. Undergraduate tutors are enrolled in BISP 195 for 4 hours of credit and are graded on a
P/NP basis.
EVALUATION OF TAs/TUTORS
Each TA/tutor will be evaluated:
(1) by his/her students via an on-line survey during the quarter, and the results of that evaluation
will be communicated to the TA/tutor to help him or her to understand both their strengths to
build on and any practices that could be improved and
(2) at the end of each quarter by the instructor in charge of the course.
(3) In addition, Ph.D. student TAs who are teaching in lecture courses will be observed during
one section by a Senior TA and will then receive feedback. Senior TAs will contact Ph.D,
student TAs to set up arrangements for the observation and the subsequent consultation.
These evaluations are strictly between the TA and the Senior TA; they are not included in the
TAs official file.
Based on the outcome of student and faculty evaluation, outstanding TAs/tutors may be
considered for a Teaching Excellence Award; awards are presented annually during the
Divisional retreat.
6
If a TA/tutor’s performance is below the expectations of the instructor in charge of a course, and
the TA/tutor does not respond effectively to the instructor's direct request for improvement, the
instructor will notify the Division's Associate Dean for Education, the Chair of the Graduate
Committee (for graduate students), and the Faculty TA Advisor, and these people will work
together to investigate the situation and to take appropriate action.
A TA/tutor who repeatedly fails to meet reasonable expectations or to respond to requests for
improvement can expect serious consequences that may even include dismissal from the
TA/tutor position and assignment of a failing grade. In addition, all instructor evaluations
become part of a TA/tutor’s employment file and may be added to his or her academic file.
TEACHING ASSISTANT/TUTOR RESPONSIBILITIES
In many classes, TA/tutors support the teaching efforts of the faculty by providing small-group
instruction in a large lecture course. This support is valuable to both instructors and students
because the sheer size of a large course requires faculty to lecture. TA/tutors can provide
individual attention during discussion sections, and that kind of attention greatly helps many
students. It is, therefore, important that a TA/tutor understands his/her responsibilities and
fulfills them thoroughly and competently. In order to do a good job, a TA/tutor needs both to
know the professor's expectations for TAs/tutors and for the course, and to interact
effectively with students (e.g., conducting sections and labs, grading, applying ethical
standards, and curtailing unacceptable conduct such as academic dishonesty). Here is a
general description of what TAs/tutors do.
1. Typical TA/tutor responsibilities in lecture classes
A.
Running Discussion Sections
In addition to being fully prepared before every section meeting, TAs/tutors should
arrive at the session punctually and be available to the students during the entire 50
minutes of the session. (Because space is precious in a crowded University, be
careful not to prolong your section if it blocks access to another class that is scheduled
in your room during the next block of time.)
B.
Lecture Attendance
TAs/tutors are expected to attend all lecture classes unless the instructor gives specific
permission for an absence.
C.
Office Hours
TAs/tutors are required to hold an average of 1-2 office hours per week to provide
individual help to students who are having trouble understanding the subject matter of
the course. Ask the course instructor what is expected in your course. Rooms
for meeting will not be assigned automatically. However, common TA rooms may be
available. By federal law, if a student wishes to discuss grades or other personal
issues, a TA/tutor must arrange for the conversation to be PRIVATE.
D.
TA Meetings
Attendance at all TA meetings scheduled by the instructor is mandatory because they
uniquely serve several important functions. These meetings are used for setting up
logistics (who will do what when?). They allow the instructor to gauge how well
TAs/tutors understand course material and to tell TAs/tutors about the philosophy of
7
the course and details of how the course will be structured. Equally valuable, it lets
TAs/tutors give the course instructor feedback concerning the course.
E.
Review Sessions
Prior to midterm and final examinations, many TAs/tutors are asked by the instructor to
take part in (or even to hold) review sessions in addition to regular sections. Room
reservations for these sessions can be scheduled ONLY by the Head TA (if there is
one in the class) or by the course instructor. Please don't try to do it on your own.
F.
Homework: Problem Sets, Homework Solutions and Problem Set Solutions
In some classes the TAs/tutors participate in writing homework assignments (for
example, practice problems) and in providing solutions for the assignments.
G.
Quizzes
In some classes the TAs/tutors independently prepare or participate in writing quizzes
for their sections. This task usually includes providing an answer key.
H.
Exams
Two of the most important duties of most TA/tutors are proctoring and grading
examinations. Time spent grading exams may range from none (for computer scored
multiple-choice tests) to several hours (for problem-type exams). TA/tutors MUST be
available for both the administration and the scoring of exams. The TA/tutor can
discuss the dates and time commitment with the course instructor, but exams are
frequently scheduled months in advance, and in that case times can't be changed.
I.
Keeping Records
The TA/tutor is responsible for maintaining the records for all students in his/her
section. The TA/tutor must make sure those records are kept confidential and in a
safe place. If records are stored on a computer, they must regularly and effectively be
backed up. There is NO good excuse for losing these records.
All completed assignments, exams, grades, correspondence, and other
information about individual students in the class MUST be kept confidential
unless the student has given explicit written consent to break confidentiality.
Papers and examinations must be returned to the students in a way that protects the
privacy of the student. (For more specific information about UCSD grading policies,
please refer to students.ucsd.edu/academics and click on Grades.)
Grade records must be kept for at least 3 quarters (the instructor of your course is
likely to keep them, so you won't be directly responsible once the quarter is over);
unclaimed exams are kept for one full quarter.
J.
Assigning Grades
The faculty member in charge of the course is solely responsible for assigning
students' grades, but in many classes TAs/tutors play an important role in evaluating
students' work. If a student complains to a TA/tutor about a final grade, the TA/tutor
should refer the student to the instructor, because the instructor has final responsibility
for the conduct of the course. Only faculty members have the authority to change a
letter grade.
8
K.
Academic Dishonesty
Maintaining academic integrity is EVERYONE'S business. A TA/tutor must, by vigilant
proctoring and grading, do his or her utmost to discourage cheating. Suspected
cheating should be reported immediately to the instructor. Early in the quarter be sure
you know the instructor's policies regarding cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of
academic dishonesty. Don't try to handle these situations by yourself; involve the
instructor as soon as possible.
L.
What if a TA/tutor is unhappy with the instructor?
If a TA/tutor encounters a problem that cannot be resolved informally with the
instructor, it should be brought to the attention of the Faculty TA Advisor or USIS Staff.
They will mediate the discord by talking to the parties involved, keeping a written
record for use by the Associate Dean for Education and the Education Committee, if
the committee needs to step in to help in solving the problem.
2. Typical TA/Tutor responsibilities in laboratory classes
A.
Pre-Lab/Dry-Lab training
TAs can teach a laboratory class effectively ONLY if they themselves are able to
perform all of the assigned lab experiments and if they understand them completely.
To ensure this level of competence, instructors usually require their TAs to practice all
experiments in pre-lab sessions before the exercise is scheduled in class. For
example, in some classes the TAs perform lab experiments at weekly TA meetings.
B.
Running Laboratory Sections (There's a lot to do!)
TAs are expected to arrive ahead of time to help with setting up. Depending on the
type of course being taught, the set-up may require as much as an hour (one example:
Animal Physiology labs.) TAs must make sure the classroom is properly stocked for
that particular day, which may include organizing chemicals, glassware, and other lab
equipment.
TAs for courses that depend on the use of live animals may assist the Undergraduate
(UG) lab staff in the handling of the animals, such as rats, frogs and chicks. This task
may include assisting in administering anesthetics and monitoring the depth of
anesthesia.
TAs must know safety procedures, as well as the location and use of lab safety
equipment. They are expected to inform the students about lab safety rules and to
enforce those regulations. They should watch for any safety hazards, including
improper use of chemicals, UV lamps, or radiation; inappropriate clothing or long and
unconfined hair; and eating or drinking in the labs. TAs monitor students to be sure
that they properly dispose of all lab waste. In addition, TAs should supervise the
students' use of consumable supplies to minimize wasteful practices.
In order to minimize the need for EXPENSIVE equipment readjustments and repairs,
TAs must carefully oversee students' use of equipment. Any malfunctions of
equipment should be reported to the UG Lab staff member who supports the class.
9
TAs should be very well acquainted with the supply system for their lab, so they can
help their students locate what they need. Any supply shortage should be reported to
the UG Lab staff member who supports the class.
TAs may be required to remain in the lab after normal class hours end to assist
students in equipment operation. (Check with the instructor to learn the class policy.)
TAs may be required to secure the lab area before leaving for the day, i.e., turning off
lights, turning off running water, turning off equipment, and locking doors.
C.
Lecture Attendance
Some lab classes are accompanied by a lecture period. If so, TA attendance at this
lecture is required unless the instructor specifically gives permission for an absence.
D.
Office Hours
Typically TAs in lab courses don't hold separate office hours because the TAs are so
readily available during lab sessions. However, some instructors may request that a
TA/tutor hold office hours; check with the instructor of your course. If a student wants
to talk about grades or grading with a TA during lab course hours, the TA must arrange
to make the conversation private. NEVER hold that kind of conversation in the open
lab!
E.
TA Meetings
Attendance at all TA meetings scheduled by the instructor is mandatory because they
uniquely serve several important functions. These meetings are used for setting up
logistics (who will do what when?). They allow the instructor to gauge how well TAs
understand course material and to tell TAs about the philosophy of the course and
details of how the course is structured. A very valuable function is that they provide
time for TAs/tutors to give the course instructor feedback concerning the course.
F.
Grading
TAs for lab classes participate in grading quizzes (and exams if the course design
includes these). Typically a major task will be grading lab reports and in some lab
classes, helping students to prepare and to practice an oral presentation.
G.
Exams
In some lab courses, TA/tutors also proctor and grade examinations. Time spent
grading exams may range from none (for computer scored multiple-choice tests) to
several hours (for problem-type exams). TA/tutors MUST be available for both the
administration and the scoring of exams. The TA/tutor can discuss the dates and time
commitment with the course instructor, but many exams are scheduled many months
in advance, and in that case times can't be changed.
H.
Keeping Records
The TA/tutor is responsible for maintaining the records for all students in his/her
section. The TA/tutor must make sure those records are kept confidential and in a
safe place. If records are stored on a computer, they must regularly and effectively be
backed up. There is NO good excuse for losing these records.
10
All completed assignments, exams, grades, correspondence, and other
information about individual students in the class MUST be kept confidential
unless the student has given explicit written consent to break confidentiality.
(For more specific information about UCSD grading policies, please refer to
students.ucsd.edu/academics and click on Grades.)
Grade records must be kept for at least 3 quarters (the instructor of your course is
likely to keep them for you, so you won't be directly responsible once the quarter is
over); unclaimed exams are kept for one full quarter.
I.
Academic Dishonesty
Maintaining academic integrity is EVERYONE'S business. A TA/tutor must, by vigilant
proctoring and careful grading do his or her utmost to discourage cheating. In lab
classes plagiarism can be a problem, and TAs are usually most able to recognize it.
Suspected cheating should be reported immediately to the instructor. Early in the
quarter be sure you know the instructor's policies regarding cheating, plagiarism, and
other forms of academic dishonesty. Don't try to handle these situations by yourself;
involve the instructor as soon as possible.
J.
Assigning Grades
The faculty member in charge of the course is solely responsible for assigning
students' grades, but in many classes, TAs/tutors play an important role in evaluating
students' work. If a student complains to a TA/tutor about a final grade, the TA/tutor
should refer the student to the instructor, because the instructor has final responsibility
for the conduct of the course. Only faculty member has the authority to change a letter
grade.
K.
What if a TA/tutor is unhappy with the instructor?
If a TA/tutor encounters a problem that cannot be resolved informally with the
instructor, it should be brought to the attention of the Faculty TA Advisor or USIS Staff.
They will mediate the discord by talking to the parties involved, keeping a written
record for use by the Associate Dean for Education and the Education Committee, if
the committee needs to step in to help in solving the problem.
11
TA/TUTOR RESOURCES AND CONTACTS
Places
• CTD - CTD stands for "Center for Teaching Development." This campus-wide program
supports some TA. The Center's program includes workshops. To learn about CTD programs
check their Web site: http:// ctd.ucsd.edu. The office is located in Center Hall, Suite 307 and
309.
• Resources for Biology TAs (a Web site) Check out
http://www.biology.ucsd.edu/undergrad/ta-positions/teachassist.html
for information about resources you can use in your role as a TA (e.g., you can hold office hours
in Muir Biology 2165; check this site for instructions how to do it).
People
• Dr. Beth Simon is the Director of the CTD, assisted by Dr. Peter Newbury. Martha Stacklin
is a learning skills counselor in the CTD. She is also the Coordinator of the International TA
Language Program, and she teaches a "Public Speaking" Course. Martha’s contact info is 5343981 or [email protected].
• Dr. Gabriele Wienhausen is the Associate Dean for Education and the Chair of the Education
Committee. If you have questions, suggestions, or concerns regarding the undergraduate
curriculum, etc., you may find it helpful to discuss them with her. Dr. Wienhausen’s office is
located in Room 6213 in the Natural Sciences Building. She can be reached by email at
[email protected].
• Dr. Jim Kadonaga is the Chair of the Graduate Committee. Concerns about TAing or other
aspects of your graduate curriculum should be directed toward him. His office is located in
Pacific Hall 2212B and he can be reached via email at [email protected].
• Dr. Kathy French is the Faculty TA Advisor. She organizes and conducts departmental TA
training and oversees other TA related activities such as evaluation. She is the one you should
talk to if you have concerns or problems related to your TA assignments that cannot be resolved
by talking to USIS Staff. Dr. French's office is Pacific Hall 3123B. Her telephone number is
858-534-5938, and her email address is [email protected].
• Natalie Noles and Jamie Hammond are the Undergraduate Student and Instructional
Services (USIS) staff members who are primarily responsible for managing administrative tasks
related to TA/Tutor/UGIA assignments. As part of the instructional services support team for the
Division, they can be a very valuable source of information for questions regarding the fiscal and
administrative part of a TA assignment. Contact them at: [email protected].
•Biology Timekeepers, Fiscal assistants for the Division facilitate completion of hiring
paperwork required for paid TAs/Tutors. They also coordinate payroll for all paid TAs and
Tutors in the Division and can answer questions regarding timesheets/timekeeping. The office
and drop box for timesheets is located in 1815 Urey Hall. They can be reached by emailing:
[email protected]. Phone: (858) 534-1968.
12
TA/TUTORS' FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How can I get help if I need it in a hurry?
If there is a crisis (medical, personal, etc.) in your classroom and you need emergency aid
RIGHT AWAY, phone 911 from an on-campus phone. Alternatively you can phone 4HELP from an on-campus phone or 858-534-4357 (same number) from your cell phone. If
no phone is available in your classroom, phone 911 using your cell phone.
How do I get a TA office?
Individual TA Offices are not provided. For current information on which rooms are available for
office hours and when you can use them, visit http://biology.ucsd.edu/undergrad/tapositions/teachassist.html.
How do I change my section meeting time?
Only the course instructor can request a change in the section time, and now that the campus is
so crowded, all other options must have been explored before the professor will make the
request. Please do NOT try to reschedule on your own.
How do I reserve a room for a review session or schedule a make-up section?
Please check first with the professor of your course. If he/she agrees it’s a good idea, visit
http://biology.ucsd.edu/undergrad/ta-positions/teachassist.html and follow the procedures
described.
How do I obtain a copy of the textbook (and/or supplements) for the course?
Biology Student & Instructional Services has desk copies for TA/Tutor use. Please visit
http://biology.ucsd.edu/undergrad/ta-positions/teachassist.html for textbook reservation
instructions. You can use the book ONLY during the quarter when you are TAing in the course.
You will need to return it at the end of the quarter, and if you will be TAing the course for the
following quarter you must check out the book again. Please note: we ask that you do NOT
write or highlight in the book(s) as they are needed for future use. If you fail to return the book
you will be charged 50% of the cost of a new book, up to $50 per book or supplement.
What do I do when classroom conflicts arise?
If you schedule a room outside of your normal lecture/lab/discussion time, be sure to bring a
copy of your email confirmation as proof of your reservation. If the professor in your
course or the head TA requests a room for you, ask for a hard-copy of this confirmation. By
doing this you are ensured that the room assigned to you is yours. If you have repeated room
and/or time conflicts with someone from another course, please contact
[email protected].
What do I do if a student contacts me about receiving an incomplete?
If a student contacts you during finals week about receiving an Incomplete please refer them to
the professor in the course. The Academic Senate has stringent rules regarding the grade of
Incomplete, and the professor is the first person who will need to approve the request.
Incomplete’s must be filed by the end of finals week.
What do I do if a student needs assistance with exams?
It depends on the nature of the assistance required. Please refer the student to the professor
who will need to arrange for permitted assistance with exams.
13
How can I send extra study material to students in my section?
The Division no longer provides funds for photocopying hand-outs. The best approach is to get
the e-mail addresses of the students who regularly attend your section, and send your “handout” to your students as an e-mail attachment before your section meets. Students can print out
the file if they want it.
How do I arrange for Audio Visual Equipment?
Most classrooms at UCSD now have a self-service media center. If your section room is lacking
basic necessary media, please check with the professor of your course and then follow the
procedure found at http://biology.ucsd.edu/undergrad/ta-positions/teachassist.html to request an
alternate room.
Where do I get chalk?
All classrooms are supposed to have white chalk (that is, thin white chalk). However,
sometimes that chalk may be gone, especially at the end of the day. In addition, rooms never
have colored chalk or the "fat" chalk many instructors (and students) prefer. We highly
recommend that you bring your own chalk. Your professor’s faculty assistant probably has a
stock of chalk and dry erase markers.
What should I do if I have a student with emotional problems?
Please do NOT try to serve as a therapist for any of your students (unless you have received
many years of training). It can make matters worse for a student in distress, and you may find
that you are quickly in over your head. Instead, please DO refer the student to CAPS
(Counseling and Psychological Services). A staff of qualified psychologists and counselors
provide assistance to students who may be experiencing academic, emotional, personal,
marital, family, or vocational problems. All services, except for specialized testing, are available
to students at no charge. Confidentiality is guaranteed. The Central Office is located in Room
190 Galbraith Hall. For information and appointments, call 534-3755. (To learn more about this
topic, come to the "Students in Crisis" mid-quarter workshop.
What should I do if I have a student with academic problems?
You can try referring the student to OASIS, 534-3760. OASIS offers a variety of services
intended to help students in their course work. In addition, the individual colleges offer
workshops or other assistance with general problems such as text anxiety.
Can I use e-mail to communicate with the students participating in the course I am TAing
for?
We encourage you to communicate with the students in your section via e-mail. In addition,
your professor can use Triton Link to make e-mail announcements to the whole class.
However, grades are confidential so they must be handled specially. Please leave it to the
professor or head TA in the class to decide whether and how to e-mail a grade to a student.
Where and how can I find out more about TAing?
USIS Staff can provide the answers to most administrative questions and concerns about TAing
in the Division of Biological Sciences, and you can ask Dr. Kathy French (email is likely to work
best: [email protected]). The CTD can provide more general information about teaching.
14
Who do I talk to when I have a conflict with my professor?
It is usually best if you can resolve the problem by talking with the professor. However, if you
believe that this method will not work, please contact Dr. Kathy French ([email protected];
534-5938) or Dr. Gabriele Wienhausen.
What are the TA Teaching Excellence Awards?
Each quarter, the Division of Biological Sciences selects three Ph.D. students and three
undergraduates to receive outstanding teaching awards. These selections are based on
student evaluations and professor evaluations. Recent evaluation forms are included at the end
of this manual.
When do I get evaluated and when can I see the results of my evaluations?
Student evaluations take place sometime during the quarter, and faculty evaluations take place
toward the end of the academic quarter you are TAing in. The results of these evaluations are
available to you after the grades for the class have been officially posted.
In addition, Biology Ph.D. students who are TAing are observed by a Senior TA while they are a
section and then meet with the Senior TA to discuss the observation. This process is intended
entirely to help the TA and provide feedback at the beginning of the doctoral student's teaching
career to help him or her succeed as teacher.
Who do I talk to if I am a paid TA/tutor and my pay check doesn't arrive?
Please check with a fiscal assistant for Biology. (Email: [email protected]; Phone:
(858) 534-1968; 1815 Urey Hall).
Where do I go if I am exposed to or witness sexual harassment?
The Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) provides education
about sexual harassment and gender discrimination, and they participate in the resolution these
cases. Every member of the UCSD community should understand that UCSD will not tolerate
sexual harassment; such behavior is prohibited both by law and by University policy. UCSD
policy also addresses conflicts of interest arising from consensual relationships. You or your
students may obtain advice about related rights and responsibilities without filing a formal
complaint. First-time TAs/tutors are required the complete the online education program,
Preventing Sexual Harassment, available at
training.newmedialearning.com/psh/ucsd/
and to turn in a certificate of completion. The OPHD office is located at 201 University
Center. Call (858) 534-8298 or email [email protected].
Is there anywhere to report incidents of hate speech or behavior, or similar events?
Yes! The UCSD Principles of Community forbid derogatory speech or overt bullying of people
based on identifying them with any particular group or community. If you hear or observe this
kind of behavior, please go to <reportbias.ucsd.edu>. Your report will be taken seriously and
the situation will be investigated.
15
Here are suggestions from recent Biology TAs to help you teach well. They've been
tested in Biology classrooms at UCSD.
Before your section:
• I found it very helpful to create a lesson plan at the very least one day before class. I also
found it helpful to walk-through the lesson plan that I created at least once before I
presented it in class. This way I was comfortable during section.
• What I thought worked well is tailoring the discussion to the needs of the class - my section
had quite a few students interested in pre-health, so I included some biomedical
applications of physiology in my examples. One thing the students liked were real photos
of anatomical structures that were discussed in the lecture.
• I thought a little bit of humor worked well throughout the quarter. Look for a funny comic strip
or a cartoon to accompany a problem set or example problem; it really lightens up the
mood if the room is too quiet.
• I frequently asked my students to use PubMed and Google and challenge themselves to find
the latest research/interesting articles relating to the systems we were covering in the
physiology class. I started each section by mentioning something interesting that they or I
had discovered. I think this helped increase the students' enjoyment of and passion for
physiology.
• PREPARE PREPARE PREPARE!
• Don't just prepare for discussion at the bare minimum. Think about how you will explain things
before you are up in front of the students. Sometimes I thought I knew exactly what
something was, but in front of my class I couldn't explain it at all! Predict where questions
will be asked and try to be able to answer them.
• Obviously, you cannot imagine every scenario, but try to think ahead as much as possible!
Also, seriously consult other TA's and the professor. If you can't find a solution, chances
are they may have been able to.
In your section:
• Your enthusiasm is critical for getting students to participate!
• Smile and don't be too hard on students the first day. This doesn't mean you slack off or try to
be their best buddies, but before the section starts you can chat with your students. For
example, you can say "Hi, how was the weekend?" It eases the students into the
discussion about class work.
• I think it's really a good idea for a TA to ask very simple questions first. Once you get students
in habit of saying yes and no, it gets much simpler. So, instead of asking them all too
detailed questions, like what is the mechanism behind ..... one can just ask is this part of
the mechanism, and then go more in detailed questions about asking. It warms up
students a lot!
16
• Taking the time to get to know your students (and their names) really helps a lot in terms of
engaging students in discussion and ultimately improved their overall performance in the
class.
• MAKE IT A RULE that you will not give answers to questions on the board until students have
contributed to the discussion. If no one contributes, then leave that question and go on to
another. I've found that as soon as you move to a different question, students will talk
about the previous question because they want to KNOW the answers! If you follow this
procedure, students learn "Hey, in this discussion I am not getting spoon fed every single
thing. I need to be participating."
• BRING CANDY to reward students who participate; it gets the students motivated to speak
and answer questions
• I had trouble at first deciding what material to cover during my discussion sections, since often
there was more material than I had time to cover in any meaningful way. I felt pressured to
cover everything, but eventually I decided to stick to what I found the most confusing (or
what a student brought up to me after class). I would then spend the majority of time
discussing and de-convoluting that topic, rather than splitting my time up among all the
topics. I liked this approach, and I think the students also appreciated it.
• Identifying analogies that relate the information from the class to things that the students are
familiar with is better than just repeating information.
• Writing the agenda on the chalkboard before section is really helpful for you and the
• students to see how the section is progressing. Additionally, making
handouts that provide summaries of lectures, but also require the students
to answer analysis questions is extremely beneficial.
• When I had problems getting students to participate in class, breaking them up into groups and
having them work on problems together and then reuniting as an entire class helped a lot!
• Once I organized my students into smaller group, there was so much more energy. Everyone
started talking to each other, and once they all got comfortable with one another, they
started participating in the section more. It's nice to do this at the beginning of the quarter.
The more the students became with one another, the more participation I saw.
• Giving the students index cards and inviting them to write down what they were having the
most trouble with in class was a good way to get student feedback.
• I think it is a good idea to make a sign-in sheet at the beginning of EACH section. Sometimes if
you mess up in section, you need to email the students to let them know. It's difficult to do
that if you don't know who was there.
After your section:
• It's a GREAT idea to email the students after discussion to just outline the key topics that they
had trouble with as a class and to provide a question or two that makes them use the
information in a new way and/or in a way that requires them to apply the information to a
novel situation.
17
And in addition:
• After the first midterm, I asked the students with the top scores to give me a sentence or two
on their study habits, and what they would suggest to other students to help them do well
in class. People have told me that they found this helpful.
• Treating your students like colleagues instead of like lower minions makes a huge difference in
how receptive they are. I've heard from students about other TAs being on their "high
horse" and the students really don't like that. It doesn't foster a friendly
learning environment.
What will YOUR suggestion be?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
II. BEING A TEACHER
There are two elements essential to being a good teacher: enthusiasm for the subject and a genuine
interest in the personal, as well as professional, well-being of the students.
Christopher Reed
Working with the professor in your course
It is often useful to remember that TA stands for Teaching Assistant. The title says it all:
according to University regulations, your job is to assist a professor in teaching a particular
course or courses. In practice the details of this assignment can differ considerably from course
to course. In this position, your primary responsibility is to the professor who teaches
the course, although you also owe allegiance to the University and to your department. For
this reason, the relationship you develop with your professor critical to your job.
The amount of interest and enthusiasm that different professors show for courses they instruct
can vary a great deal. In some courses TAs will pretty much be left to their own devices. In
others, the professor may act like the brooding mother hen, keeping an ever-watchful eye on
her chicks. It is, therefore, a good idea to make an appointment to see the professor as soon as
you know what your assignment for the following quarter will be, so you can learn before your
course begins what will be expected of you and what your duties and time commitment will be.
That way you can plan ahead. The professor has a great deal of latitude in the duties which he
or she can delegate to the TAs (although he or she retains ultimate responsibility for the course
and for the assignment of grades). Make sure that you know the aims of the course so that you
can reinforce them when talking to your students. It's a good idea to ask if the professor will
provide a course outlines; previous exams in the course can help, too.
The most important aspect of your relationship to the professor teaching the course is keeping
the lines of communication open. You can't teach the course on your own (and you wouldn't
want to; you have other demands on your time and attention); you need the professor. Your
professor may well take the initiative and contact you, but if he or she does not, you can initiate
the conversation. Why is communication so important? Here's one example: you don't want to
be told by the professor, after many hours of hard work, that the grades you assigned to student
papers were too high or too low. Here's another: if you must miss a scheduled meeting,
18
lecture, or section, you need to notify your professor and provide reasonable assistance in
identifying your replacement. If you just fail to show up, it's likely to cause serious problems.
Here's another area in which your relationship with the professor can be very important: you can
act as a mediator between the students taking the course and the faculty member teaching it.
An important source of feedback for a professor comes from the results of the CAPE
questionnaire that is now completed on-line at the end of the quarter. Of course this information
can help the professor to make improvements when he or she again teaches the course, but it
can't remedy problems that arise while the course is still in session. Few students have the
courage to go to a professor and tell him or her that the pace is too fast or too slow, or that only
a Nobel Laureate could understand the examples given in class. By listening to the students,
and by making it evident that you are interested in their reactions, you can (using some
discretion, of course) provide the professor with information that can make the course a more
valuable experience for all concerned. Because the professor depends on you to carry out your
assigned TA duties throughout the course, it is important that you tell him or her if there is a
problem.
Working with your students
As a TA/tutor, you occupy a unique position in the University hierarchy. You are neither entirely
a teacher nor entirely a student, but rather a combination of both. Because you may be close to
the undergraduate experience yourself (at least closer than the average professor is), you are in
a good position to empathize with problems that your students may have, and generally to build
a rapport with them, thus humanizing the often impersonal nature of instruction here at UCSD
(but you must always remember that you are now on the "teaching" team, not on the
"student" team).
Sections - You are likely to be teaching in relatively small groups, rather than in large lectures.
Sections give students in large classes a chance to discuss the content of the course and to ask
questions which they cannot (or dare not) ask in the large lecture room. A section should NOT
be another lecture, but instead it should give students a chance to ask questions about course
material that has already been presented during lectures by the professor.
There is no single recipe for a successful section, partly because course content and objectives
will be different in each course, but also because each TA/tutor has an individual style and
personality. Some TAs/tutors may be quite successful in using theatrics such as standing on
chairs, prancing about the room, or throwing candy to reward answers, but for other people this
approach would be an invitation to disaster. TAing offers a chance to identify and to develop
your own style of teaching. Suggestions from other TAs/tutors, as well as the resources of the
Center for Teaching Development can help you, and we've included several suggestions that
you might want to try out. (See pages 16 - 18 for suggestions from recent Biology TAs at
UCSD!)
Do avoid making your section just a rerun of past lectures. Your professor may have strong
opinions regarding specific content for sections. Section meetings can be an ideal place for
giving and discussing quizzes, for giving practice exams, for going over the logic of answers to
exam questions, for discussing papers, etc. Discussing and answering students' questions may
remain the most important functions of many sections, but try to offer incentives for all students
to attend, not just those who are having trouble understanding the material.
19
Office Hours - The TA/tutor's office is an important extension of the classroom, a place where
some of the impersonal nature of education at UCSD can be counteracted. Usually you will
hold between one and three office hours per week.
At the first meeting of your section, tell your students where and when your office hour will take
place. Try not to change the time or the location of your office hours during the quarter, be sure
you arrive at or before at the appointed time every week, and if you MUST make a change,
clearly announce any changes in advance. You can also tell students that they can contact you
through e-mail, but it is a terrible idea to share your phone number.
Fair warning: While every TA/tutor is required to have office hours, students aren't required to
come to them. How do you get students to come in? It helps if you let students know that you
welcome their visits, perhaps by repeatedly emphasizing when you are available and if you help
students to feel comfortable when they do come.
Your office hours fulfill a useful function only if students attend. There are a number of ways to
attract students. For example, if your section is not too large, you could ask every student to
come in for a short conference at the beginning of the quarter, so you can learn about your
students’ backgrounds and what they expect from the course, or you could ask that a particular
assignment or paper be picked up during an office hour (rather than being handed back in
class), so that you can discuss it with the students. However you do it, your office hours allow
you to develop one-to-one rapport with your students. Once this has happened, you will find
students much less hesitant to come in a second time and that the rapport you build up outside
of class time will carry over into the sections you teach.
WHAT DO I NEED TO DO FOR MY FIRST DAY OF CLASS?
First-time teachers may feel more confident about their knowledge of their subject than about
their ability to teach. That's not surprising. Recent pedagogy research has shown that teaching
is a skill that can be learned. Good teachers are not "born," but rather are developed through
training, practice, work, and feedback on their teaching strengths and weaknesses.
New TAs/tutors often find their first few weeks of teaching challenging—even difficult. During
this phase they must make the major adjustment in their role from being a student to being a
teacher. That means that they must learn to communicate effectively with undergraduates who
are their responsibility, not just their peers.
This section of the handbook is designed to help TAs meet these new responsibilities. It
includes practical advice from experienced TAs on how to cope with the first major tasks
confronting a beginner. Remember that an effective TA/tutor will strive from the beginning of
the quarter to develop sensitivity to the needs of his or her students. To reach this goal, a
TA/tutor should use those first few class meetings not merely to cover course material (although
of course that’s important), but also to establish a relatively egalitarian, relaxed, and
intellectually vibrant classroom environment.
1. Meet with your professor before classes begin
Before your first class session you should meet with your supervising professor along with all
the other TAs/tutors for the course so that everyone is clear on his/her responsibilities. The
20
professor should brief you on the course's content. If your professor has not set up such a
meeting, you should feel free to request one.
Some questions you might want to ask at your first meeting with your professor:
1. Am I required to:
__ go to lectures?
__ have office hours (how many?, are "electronic office hours" permissible?)
__ conduct review sessions (how many, when, how many hours?)
__ proctor exams?
__ grade papers? grade exams?
__ prepare /submit questions for exams?
__provide feedback on draft exam questions?
__ conduct discussion sections (how many each week?)
__supervise undergraduate Tutors or Undergraduate Instructional Apprentices (UGIAs)?
__keep a record of _________ ?
2. Do students sign up for specific discussion sections? If so, how?
3. In the discussion section, should I
__make attendance mandatory or optional ?
__review class material?
__discuss papers?
__present new material not covered in lecture?
__assign homework discussions/problem sets/ analysis?
__give quizzes?
__devise group projects?
4. Is there a syllabus? Should I go over it in section?
5. How much do exams or projects count toward the final grade? Are the exams already
scheduled?
6. Which textbook(s) and /or additional course material will be used? (If there is a textbook, you
can get a copy from the Student and Instructional Services office in Pacific Hall; consult the
Web site at: http://biology.ucsd.edu/undergrad/ta-positions/teachassist.html). If there is a
website or the class uses the TED system, is there a password for TAs/tutors.
7. When and where will we have TA meetings? How will the meetings be structured?
21
8. Will we discuss grading policies/rules/strategies at TA meetings?
9. What are your policies about cheating?
10. What if I have to miss a class, a section, or a meeting because of a schedule conflict?
2. What should I do DURING my first class?
Contemplating the first class can make a new TAs/tutor feel pretty anxious; even TAs with
experience can be a bit nervous about the first class meeting of a quarter. Here are some
suggestions for how to prepare for class. Using them can help to make your first section a
smashing success. Remember, a well-prepared TA is a confident TA!
• In preparing for that first class, ask the course instructor about what he or she wants you to
do.
• Read through the articles, chapters, or books required for the earliest part of the course.
There’s no need to blitz through the entire quarter's reading, but do keep up with the class
as the quarter progresses.
•There is no "best" way to conduct your first class. What goes on in section or in a lab on
the first day can vary among courses and even among TAs/tutors in the same course: some
TAs/tutors prefer not to discuss class materials during the first section but instead focus
more on creating an open class atmosphere and building rapport. However, the professor
may want you to cover specific material in the first section, and if you ignore that request
you may put your students at a disadvantage.
• Do try to make your first section productive. Here are some suggestions:
• Introduce yourself and tell a little about interests, and then talk about office hours,
when and where you will be available to provide help, and what you plan to do in
discussion sections. Say why you're happy to be teaching this class and what you like
best about the course material.
• Take index cards to section, hand them out, and ask for useful information about
each student: their year in school, their major, their future plans, best e-mail address to
use to contact them, etc. You can then use these cards in the early weeks of the class
to call on students and learn their names. During the first few sections, some TAs find
it useful to have students state their names before they make a comment in class;
others have students write their names on pieces of folded paper and put the paper in
front of them so that the TA and the other students can learn everyone's name quickly.
• Use an icebreaker to help students meet each other and learn names. Have pairs of
people interview each other for about 5 minutes (sort of like speed-dating). Then have
them introduce each other to the class: name, major, year in school, future plans,
where’s home, whatever else you can devise? (Be sure that this activity doesn't get in
the way of talking about the science in the course if that's what your professor
expects!)
22
• If your professor hasn't already done it, tell your students about the nature and
frequency of exams and papers. Tell them whether attendance or participation in the
discussion section will be required and will be contribute to their final grade. Most
important, let them know that you care about their success.
• Plan to cover at least some substantive intellectual material during the first class.
Many TAs/tutors feel it is important to get beyond mundane administrative details and
at least briefly discuss some exciting problems or issues germane to the course. You
might introduce an interesting example of the course material to illustrate the kinds of
things they can expect in section. An important goal is to get your students talking with
one another, not just talking to you.
• Include as many students as possible in class discussions so that all students from
the very first day feel safe when speaking in front of the class. Encourage them to
react to each other's ideas.
Methods and strategies for effective teaching
TAs/tutors should set their goals based on the instructional style that is most suitable for their
particular discipline and for their own personality. For example, a TA/tutor who generally feels
shy about the public speaking, but relates well one-on-one with people, may find it easier and
more effective to use small group discussions and conferences with individual students.
Remember: discussion sections are NEVER the time to lecture.
1. Supporting the teaching in a Lecture Class with Sections
In general, there are two types of discussion sections at the University, and each of them has
unique characteristics, although they overlap in some respects. Be sure that you know whether
you are completely responsible for introducing new material to students OR if your job is to
review, clarify, and elaborate on material that has already been introduced by the instructor
during lectures.
The real strength of discussion sections is that they provide an opportunity for active learning,
and active learning requires student participation, but eliciting participation can be a challenge!
Sometimes it is as simple as establishing the right atmosphere and building a rapport with your
students. Often it is a matter of responding constructively to student ideas. The WAY in which
you ask questions and the format you choose for the class can also affect the level of student
input. Here are some concrete suggestions and ideas that can help you achieve a higher level
of student participation.
Establish a positive class atmosphere - Establishing a classroom atmosphere in which
students are at ease and eager to learn is important. You can foster a positive attitude in
your students:
 by being enthusiastic about the subject matter you teach.
 by learning students' names (and having them learn each other's names)
 by treating their ideas (and them) with respect.
 by being a careful listener.
The atmosphere YOU create can decrease the sense of competition that can prevail
among students at UCSD and that inhibits shyer students from participating.
23
Classroom size and arrangement can also be important. Whenever it is possible, try to
arrange the class so that everyone sees everyone else. Arranging the class in a circle or
around a table may draw shyer students out and makes you a less intimidating figure. To
maintain class participation it is also very important to use positive reinforcement whenever
students say something good and to do what you can to avoid embarrassing a student who
says something incorrect.
Establish rapport with your students
• Arrive early and chat with the students. Talk about the lecture, how the class is going, or
whatever comes up.
• Find out what excites and concerns students. Early in each class, find out what your
students want to get out of that section. (CAUTION: just walking in and asking "Does
anyone have any questions" typically elicits dead silence and of course you can't directly
answer "What's going to be on the exam?".)
• Make eye contact. Exchange glances and smiles when it's appropriate. And don't just stick
to the most responsive students; seek contact with the less interactive students as well.
• Use varied formats to encourage different kinds of students and different learning styles.
Some will be most vocal in small groups; some play to the whole class; some enjoy
debates, whereas others avoid conflict.
• Be alert to non-verbal cues of interest or readiness to speak, and call on those who look
ready.
• To build personal contact, you might try inviting each student to come to office hours at
least once.
• Get to know the individual interests of students and refer to them in class when the
opportunity arises.
• Go out of your way to encourage students who say little during sections. You might try to
find out informally why they don't participate.
Be sensitive to signs of your students' reactions: listening posture, rustling of papers,
gathering of books, scraping of feet and furniture etc.
Explain the importance of the section for the success of a studentPart of your job will be to convince students that your discussion section is a useful and
necessary part of the course. Some will think otherwise and feel that they have fulfilled their
obligation to the course by attending the lectures. (If sections are optional, they have, but
you can offer them resources that lectures can't.)
• Try to allow enough flexibility so that your section will appeal to most of your students'
needs. For example, if most of your students need clarification and review of lecture
material, you may lose the more advanced students--but perhaps their concerns can be
dealt with during office hours.
• However, if most of your students are ready to apply and extend lecture material, you
should consider addressing at least some time in your sections to these students. In that
case, you can use office hours to work individually with students who have more
fundamental problems. When students realize that you want to conduct a section that will
meet their particular needs, attendance and class participation are more likely.
Adopt realistic expectations - New TAs/tutors shouldn't be too hard on themselves. Just
as it is difficult to induce strangers to speak to each other in social settings, TAs/tutors may
24
find it hard to stimulate a lively discussion in the first section of the quarter. Give yourself
and your students at least a few weeks before you judge the quality of the discussion or the
success of your teaching.
Integrate discussion sections with lectures - A TA/tutor who doesn't attend or doesn't
closely follow the instructor's lectures will be in no position to conduct a discussion section,
which in at least some respects derives from the lectures. It is thus crucial that you attend
all lectures and follow them as carefully as you can with an eye toward identifying areas that
may give your students difficulty and that you will need to address in section. The same
advice holds for course reading: unless you carefully, you can't answer questions or clear
up specific confusion that they may create.
Prepare for every discussion section - The more time you spend thinking about and
preparing for a discussion section, the more successful it is likely to be. A safe rule is to
remember that you are--or have recently been--a student also. How would YOU react to
what you are saying? Would you understand it? Are you making sense to yourself?
The more effective the professor is in getting major concepts across, the more flexibility you
will have in planning sections. You and the instructor are a team; both of you are
critical to the success of the class.
Specific teaching methods and suggestions for what to do in discussion section:





When should I be showing students how to do something and when should I
encourage them to try it themselves?
When should I respond to a student question (give information) and when should I
encourage other students to respond (give opportunity for students to practice
skills)?
When should I review the important concepts orally and when I should use
handouts?
If I need to show students a lot of formulas or graphs, should I derive or draw them
during class or prepare handouts/overhead transparencies and discuss them
myself?
When should I rely on my own expertise, and when should I seek outside sources
(films, slide/tape programs, guest speakers, etc.)?
Here are brief descriptions of four teaching techniques:
1. The Lecture is an efficient way of teaching very large groups, but the whole point of
scheduling discussion sections is to get away from depending only on lectures. Please
make it your goal to be sure that your students participate actively in your section.
2. The Question-and-Answer Method. Basically, start with simple questions that require
students to give informational answers. Gradually progress to questions that require the
explanation and application of concepts and principles. (See section on questioning below.)
Or, begin each discussion section with a few questions relating to past material and then tie
that material into the more recently covered topics. (1) Direct questions to students in
various quarters of the room and enlist the attention of all. (2) Begin slowly, gain in tempo
as their absorption grows, and pay careful attention to the pace at which they can follow the
flow of ideas and information--don't go too fast or too slow.
25
3. The Group Discussion. This method is a good way to stimulate student participation.
Pose a provocative question, then allow the students to carry on the discussion. The
TA/tutor can moderate the discussion, clarify materials as needed and eventually summarize
the students' contribution.
4. Small-Group Problem-Solving. Group a few students according to the types of
problems they wish to solve or lab calculations they wish to understand and have them
solve the problems as a team. Peer-tutoring can also be an effective learning tool.
Many different techniques can successfully encourage active class participation:
•
If the professor of your course provides problem sets, let your students know that you
plan to use them as one basis for discussion in your section, but that you won't just give
out the answers. Or you can write your own questions, making them both interesting
and challenging (harder than you might think!)
•
Require each student to hand in a one-page summary of that week's readings or
classwork. This approach can help to ensure that students keep up with classwork,
rather than relying on you to tell them what they need to know. Alternatively, you might
encourage each student to hand in a question or problem at the beginning of section,
quickly scan the questions, and make them the basis for part of your section. This
method provides shy students with a means of making their areas of difficulty known to
you, even if they are too timid to tell you directly in the classroom. It also allows you to
diagnose major areas of difficulty when similar problems are raised by a number of
students.
•
Play "devil's advocate" to prompt students to get involved in or animated about class
discussion. Even if you agree with students' arguments about a certain topic, challenge
them with the most cogent argument against their position. This approach can often
stimulate a good debate in class.
2. Teaching in Laboratory Class
The purpose of most laboratory courses is to bridge the gap between theoretical learning and
technical/practical applications of that knowledge. In science, laboratories have traditionally
offered the opportunity to teach three main objectives. These are:
1.
Acquisition of skill in specific lab techniques (e.g., preparing an agar plate; performing
SDS gel electrophoresis; plating bacteria).
2.
Sharpening scientific analytical skills (e.g., observing, classifying, inferring, stating
hypotheses, designing experiments with adequate and appropriate controls).
3.
Deriving concrete experience with concepts that may seem abstract when they're
presented in a lecture format (e.g., measuring an action potential; observing capillary
action).
On a more personal level, laboratories offer students an opportunity to become engaged in and
to gain a stronger affinity for biology. In addition, they encourage the often-neglected social
26
aspects of learning. Lab work allows time for more interaction among students and between
students and instructors than is possible in lectures or even in large discussion sections.
Laboratory teaching policies vary greatly among courses. However, a few guidelines are
generally useful to laboratory TAs. The role of the teaching assistant in most labs is to provide
direction and assistance and to serve as a reference for students as they conduct their own
work. A lab section is NOT the appropriate place for an hour-long monologue by you on the
virtues of science or the relevance of the lab exercise. Resist the temptation to lecture too
much to students in the lab.
Preparing for the Lab
The main secret to a well-run lab is the old Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. If you aren't
frantically setting up the lab as students are streaming through the door, you will feel more
relaxed and confident as a TA. Several key actions can help to assure this:
1.
Make sure in advance that you are aware of your technical responsibilities. Talk with the
instructor and the support staff people about these issues.
2.
Conduct the entire experiment yourself at least several hours in advance. This practice
is crucial. Many instructors require that their TAs perform all lab experiments or practice
certain techniques in a pre-lab session. Others will ask TAs to perform lab experiments
at weekly meetings. It is not enough that you completed a similar experiment four years
ago. Experiments present unique difficulties for students depending on the organisms
used, chemicals available, and the equipment employed. You should be familiar with
the tricky aspects of each experiment before class. Don't cut short the time necessary
for this preparation. It is an integral part of your job as a TA.
3.
Re-familiarize yourself with the subject you will be teaching in lab. You may need to
read the course text or reference books to review--do it! Be sure that you understand
the conceptual aspects of the material before lab. Look up any terms or concepts that
are unfamiliar to you. Unless you are teaching a very basic course, you may have
forgotten some --or never quite understood it when you first learned the material. It is
embarrassing to stare blankly into space when students ask you about some concept
that was presented in the lab manual, and it's even worse to bluff your way through.
Either way you lose credibility and your authority is undermined.
4.
Perform all calculations for the lab in advance and keep them handy for aiding
students. Repeatedly miscalculating a formula confuses your students and reduces their
respect for you and your knowledge.
5.
Prepare a BRIEF introduction to the lab. The content will vary, but may include an
outline of the present exercise, rationale or purpose for the lab, and clarification of any
confusing concepts in the lab manual.
6.
Arrive at the lab early and write a brief outline of the day's exercise on the blackboard.
This outline will serve as a reference during your introduction and can help focus student
attention during the lab.
7.
Make sure that all necessary equipment and supplies are ready before the start of lab.
Nothing turns off student enthusiasm faster than having to twiddle their thumbs, chat, or
27
catch up on their text messages and e-mail while you frantically search for a critical
piece of equipment or try to track down supplies.
8.
Grade tests or lab reports carefully, and as soon as you can. If you return work
promptly, students will have more time for review and their lab reports improve, making
less work for you on subsequent reports. It also can help to improve performance on
exams.
Conducting a Lab
If you have prepared well, you are ready to interact with students and enjoy the lab. Here are
several points to remember:
1.
Start the lab session on time. It's only fair to students who made the effort to arrive on
time, and habitual latecomers may eventually learn to arrive on time when it's clear that
you won't wait for them.
2.
At the first lab of the quarter, clearly present the goals of the course, a preview of lab
activities, dates of exams (and field trips, if that applies), grading and attendance
policies, supplies required and where to find them, and how to contact you (via e-mail,
NOT your phone number!) It also helps to tell students about your special area of
interest and research within the field. Set the tone for the quarter by being friendly but
firm, and communicate your interest in making the lab an enjoyable experience (see the
section regarding the first discussion section of a quarter for more information).
3.
Introduce the lab. Be brief. (After all, the students are here to conduct the lab, not listen
to you lecture. Use the outline that you prepared in advance!)
4.
Demonstrate any tricky techniques and point out the location of special materials.
Gather the class close for this, and encourage questions, so you won't be asked to
explain the same procedure repeatedly in the first half hour of the class.
5.
Assess students' degree of preparation for lab. You might ask them to explain the
required techniques or answer key questions, which communicates to them that you
care whether or not they are prepared and that you will find out if they are not. If
students consistently arrive unprepared, you may institute short quizzes at the start of
randomly chosen sessions (check with the course professor first).
6.
During each lab session, make it a point to talk directly with each student to determine
whether she or he understands the procedure or is lost. Ask thought-questions about
the purpose of procedures or how the experiment might be applied in other
circumstances. You must take the initiative here. Many students are too shy to ask for
help, especially early in the quarter, whereas others would clearly love to monopolize
you for the whole period.
7.
Never fake the answer to a question. Instead, if you don't know the answer, admit it,
and promise that you will look it up in a reference text or the lab manual, or ask another
TA/tutor or a professor. Students will respect you for being honest and will trust the
correct answers that you give. No one knows everything. In fact, it's great to get
28
students to think along with you and answer their own questions using appropriate
references and diagrams. Help your students to become good independent learners!
8.
Inform your students of safety hazards in each lab, and enforce laboratory safety rules.
You are responsible for student safety, and it is up to you to require that your
students use appropriate safety equipment: safety glasses, chemical hoods, gloves,
radiation barriers, etc. Students may be unaware of the dangers in a lab so they depend
on you to enforce the rules.
9.
Instruct students in detail about the proper format of lab reports. If you are specific, you
can help students to think clearly about their experiments, and their reports are likely to
be more informative for them and much easier for you to grade.
10.
If you wish to make a salient point or to clarify a procedure during the middle of lab,
first attract the attention of the entire class. You can't expect students to drop their
experiments immediately and listen if you stand in one corner and speak softly.
11.
Learn students' names as quickly as possible. They will respond to you better if you
acknowledge them personally.
3. Lecturing
He who speaks much must either know a lot or lie a lot. (a German Proverb)
As a TA you should avoid lecturing, but later in your career you may be called upon to do it
well, so we consider it here. Lecturing has received a lot of criticism in recent years because
there are so many "ineffective practitioners" (euphemism for bad teachers). But lecturing can be
appropriate when it is the most effective means of achieving a defined learning objective.
Lectures should provide a summation of relevant material delivered in a stimulating manner that
facilitates comprehension and learning.
Several factors contribute to poor lecturing. They include:
o droning on and on in a monotonous voice
o poor organization
o going too fast or too slow
o repeating what’s in assigned reading (or in a previous lecture)
o little or no connection (eye contact or body language) to students
o poor use of technological support
So it stands to reason that a good teacher:
 uses his or her voice and body language to help support what’s being said
 keeps students’ level of knowledge in mind when organizing material
 refers to the textbook or lecture rather than repeating it
 intersperses some active learning techniques within more conventional lectures
 uses technology effectively
Here are some considerations as you strive to perfect your lecturing style:
•Immediacy. The most interesting and exciting lectures (and those that produce the most
learning) tend to be the ones that seem spontaneous and immediate. Of course, you
29
must plan your lectures, but that doesn't mean they have to SOUND planned. Speak to
the students, not at them. Don't read to them.
• Variety. Try to vary lectures with additional associative material that relates to the topic at
hand. Often a student will remember a story or an anecdote better than a bland piece of
information. On the other hand, be careful: too many stories strung together can
obscure the logic of a lecture.
• Organization. Design your lectures so students can follow your lines of reasoning and trace
concepts back to their source. Information is of little value if it can't be placed in context
or retrieved for later reference. It helps if you an outline of your lecture--perhaps by
writing it on the blackboard before you start talking.
• Preview and Review. Set up your lectures with a short explanation of what you will cover, how
you will proceed, and why it is important. This practice prepares students and helps
them to organize their thoughts. Before the end of lecture, re-cap what you have been
saying and why it is important, which can give students a sense of closure, clarify
material, and facilitate questions about confusing points.
• Connectors and Intermittent Summaries. Be sure that separate points are connected so that
students can see the progression of your logic. If they understand your thought
processes they will have a better chance of understanding the idea as a whole. Also
provide students with summaries at various points along the way (E.g., "so what I've said
so far is . . ."). Intermediate summaries allow students to check their understanding of
the material, provide a framework for facts and information, and give you and the class a
moment of reflection before you continue.
• Emphasis and Comparisons. Try to emphasize important main points or items vital to further
understanding. If students know what you think is important they will be more able to
reach the objectives you have set for the class. Likewise, comparing material to other
aspects of the subject (or to "real world" situations) helps students to clarify important
points and draw logical conclusions.
• Handouts. If you are presenting a particularly complicated, complex, or lengthy subject, it is
often useful to provide an outline or other materials to the students, which--for example-you could send to students via e-mail or post on a course Web site before the class so
students can print them out. This kind of hard-copy gives students something to focus on
while you speak and allows them to think about the material, rather than concentrating
on "getting it all down."
• Media. Make use of the media options available to you. If you must lecture from a text and
cannot make handouts, use overheads or computer projections. (But be careful:
galloping through a long series of Power Point slides is deadly. Use the blackboard in
between slides. Walk around the room. Don't get stuck in a rut!)
Familiarize yourself with the media tools available and use them when appropriate, but
don't rely on animations and special effects to take the place of solid information.
Animations are catchy, but aren't sufficiently informative to justify the time that they take
up. Be sure that you'll be giving your students "good value" in lecture.
30
• Wrap-up. Conclude the exposition before the end of the period so there is time for discussion,
questions, and review of salient points.
4. Using a blackboard effectively
Evaluate your writing on the board as though you were a student in your own class. Although
almost anything you put on the board will be clear to YOU, the test that you must pass is to
make your blackboard presentations clear to your students who are reading it for the first time.
Three facts to keep in mind while planning a blackboard presentation are the following:
 WRITE CLEARLY: students must be able to see and read what you have written.
Illegible or obscured work is valueless.
 Students must be given time to copy what you have written. Most simply can't listen
to you, think analytically, and write at the same time.
 Your board work must be spatially organized to help students interpret their notes
later. Organize your use of the board space logically. For example work from right to
left and top to bottom. Then when you have filled the board space, take time to erase
and begin again from the top left.
Blackboard Checklist
1.
Begin with a clean blackboard to prevent distraction and confusion.
2.
Be aware of any "dead areas" on the board that are not visible to the entire class.
3.
Use the blackboard in a systematic and organized way, progressing from one side to
the other, which will enable students to read what you have written and make logical
connections while you go on to the next point.
4.
be
Think through which elements of your blackboard work can be erased and what must
kept visible throughout the lecture so you can refer back to it.
5.
Practice your board writing to improve its size (make it BIG) and legibility (make it
CLEAR). In large lecture rooms it is helpful to use fat ("railroad") chalk.
6.
Avoid truncating words to speed up writing. These abbreviations may make sense at
the time, but later, they may just confuse the students, and in addition, your students are
trying to keep up with you as they write notes. If writing words out fully slows you down,
they'll appreciate it.
7.
Emphasize key points and items to remember. Students may try to write down
everything you write. Help them by highlighting the important parts of the material.
8.
Colored chalk can be of helpful for making distinctions, highlighting, or simply providing
variation, but be sure to try it out in YOUR classroom to so you know which colors can
31
be seen and distinguished by your students. (And don't forget: some of your students
may be color-blind!)
9.
Check with your students periodically to determine whether your board-work can be
read by the class.
10.
Don't "talk and chalk." Draw or write; THEN talk.
11.
Step aside after completing your board-work. If you stand directly in front of what
you've just written or drawn, students can't see it, so it's no help to them.
12.
Consider writing on the board in sections and then erasing in the same order. This
progression will give your students enough time to copy all of the material you have
written. It will also make it less likely that you erase material before students have a
chance to copy it.
13.
Give students time to copy what you have written.
14.
After class, go to the back of the room and evaluate your board-work according to the
above-mentioned points.
15.
Erase the board before leaving the classroom. The next person in the room will be
grateful!
5. Questioning Skills--Don't require your students to guess what you're thinking! That's
not fair.
Rationale - As a Biology TA/tutor, you will ask questions for a variety of specific reasons. You
may want to find out what your students have learned in lecture about a certain subject. You
may want to find out how well your students have prepared for a lecture or laboratory
assignment. And it's a great way to promote active learning on the part of your students. In
general, as a biology TA/tutor, you will frequently encounter teaching situations in which asking
effective oral questions is your most important teaching tool. As you formulate questions:
•
Decide whether you are more interested in eliciting specific answers or in stimulating
general intellectual inquiry. This decision, which depends on your particular discipline,
will greatly affect the content of student discussions and how much flexibility you can
have in letting student answers take their own shape.
•
Even if you decide you want a general intellectual inquiry, it is usually best to begin by
discussing basic questions. Initial questions should be simple, designed to test students'
understanding of the lectures or the readings. Probing for specific areas of
understanding or misunderstanding is a necessary first step in most discussion sections.
Once this basic understanding is achieved, you can move on to ask questions about
larger units of material and about relationships among different aspects of the course
material.
Level of Questions - It may be appropriate for your students to be able to approach your
subject matter at different levels of complexity. Sometimes you may be satisfied that a student
32
has simply memorized a set of facts. At other times, you may expect--or at least hope for-sophisticated reasoning.
In 1956, B.S. Bloom organized the development of a system for classifying educational goals
according to a hierarchy of intellectual skills. This system is still in use, and has come to be
called "Bloom's Taxonomy." The system is hierarchical, consisting of six broad categories of
educational goals that are arranged in increasing complexity. As you read through this list,
consider how the learning goals in the class you are teaching fits into this structure. The goals
are:
1. Knowledge
Simple recall of facts: i.e., knowledge that so and so is the case as
opposed to knowledge how so and so is the case.
Example: Name all of the organelles in a typical cell.
2. Comprehension
Ability to translate concepts into one's own words; e.g. use a particular
equation to solve a problem; or translate a literal statement into an
equation.
Example: Define the term "metabolic pathway" and give one example.
3. Application
Ability to apply concepts to a specific situation, to recognize and to
solve a problem where the equation or other background has not been
explicitly given.
Example: You have an aqueous solution containing: Alanine (a
monoamino, monocarboxylic amino acid), fructose (a nonionic
monosaccharide), glycogen (a nonionic large polysaccharide), ribose-5-P
(an anionic monosaccharide phosphate), and tRNA (a polyanionic nucleic
acid, MW approximately 30,000). Assuming you have a distinct assay for
each of these compounds, what procedures would you use to obtain
gram quantities of each of these compounds free of each of the other
compound?
4. Analysis
Includes all that application does, and but adds an ability to recognize
component parts within material, to distinguish relevant from
extraneous material, and to distinguish fact from hypothesis.
Example: You are given two pure proteins with the following properties:
(a) Protein 1: a nearly spherical protein of 100,000 MW composed of 2
subunits of 40,000 and 2 subunits of 10,000 MW. The protein isoelectric
point is 6.0. (b) Protein 2: a nearly spherical protein composed of a single
polypeptide chain of 25,000 MW. The protein isoelectric point is 6.0.
Predict the results you would obtain if you ran both proteins on a single
dis-gel electrophoresis system and what results you would get if you ran
both of them on a single SDS-gel electrophoresis system.
5. Synthesis
Ability to assemble components into a new form, e.g., to design a
research plan or to devise a synthetic scheme.
Example: Summarize the current state of knowledge of the mechanism
of induction of galactosidase, using either an outline or a diagram.
Include each of the following elements, clearly indicating their roles: gene,
repressor protein, inducer, operator gene, promoter, operon, polycistronic
messenger RNA, galactoside permease, galactoside transacetylase,
33
cAMP, cAMP activator protein, adenyl cyclase, inducer exclusion,
catabolic repression.
6. Evaluation
Ability to judge the value of materials based on both internal and external
criteria.
Example: Assume you are in a position to decide where limited financial
resources should be spent in terms of developing a "breeder" reactor or
advancing basic research on the "fusion" reaction. State where you
would spend the money, and justify your decision.
Many teachers have found that it's much easier to list these levels of skill than it is to use them
effectively. As you question your students, you will want to keep in mind that there are different
levels of questions. It's usually good to work at a number of different levels. If most of your
questions are at the knowledge level, some of your students may quickly become bored and
stop paying attention. If most of your questions are at the synthesis or evaluation level, some
students may get totally lost, and those people can become discouraged.
Formulating Questions - The way in which you state your questions strongly affects their
effectiveness. Here are a few points to think about:
1.
Avoid ambiguous questions. To avoid ambiguity it helps to consider how you would
frame a corresponding written. Many written exam questions are most effective if they
are directive: "Name a structure, Write the equation, Describe the mechanism, Devise a
synthetic scheme, etc." When you ask a question, you will use words such as what,
how, and why. When you formulate an oral question, think of the corresponding
directive you would write for an exam question.
2.
Avoid "yes" and "no" questions. For example, the question "Is carbon monoxide
considered a pollutant?" is almost certain to be followed by "Why is carbon monoxide
considered a pollutant?" so you might as well begin with the second question.
3.
Avoid double-barreled questions. Questions that pose two problems simultaneously
may be confusing, so think before you use them. For example, the question "What is the
difference between fission and fusion, and how is electrical power generated from these
reactions?" is actually a three-in-one question. Would it be more effective if you broke it
into sub-questions and then asked students to compare the two processes?
Questioning and Responding Techniques - The manner in which you ask questions and treat
responses is as important as anything else involved in questioning. So far, we've discussed the
levels of questions, the strategy of selecting questions, and the phrasing of questions. These
aspects of questioning are important, but the effort spent on designing good questions is lost if
you don't manage how you use them..
1.
Wait-time. When you ask a question, allow time for your students to think about it and
to formulate an answer. These periods of silence may be uncomfortable for you and
new to some students; letting them know at the beginning of the quarter that you plan to
do this can eliminate the strain both for you and for them.
After you ask a question, other than a memory or recall question, wait at least 3 seconds
before selecting a respondent. Do this even if someone volunteers immediately. If you
34
pick a respondent immediately, the other students may conclude that they don't need to
think about a response.
CORROLARY: An oral question should not be repeated or rephrased too quickly,
especially when if the repetition provides too direct a hint.
2.
Distribute Questions. Distribute questions among students so that many are brought
into participation. You may decide to choose from among volunteers, but you might also
feel free to call upon students who are not volunteering as long as you do it carefully.
(Some shy students may be terrified if they are called on--not a desirable outcome.)
Try to avoid repeatedly calling on the first student ready to reply; slower or shyer
students deserve the chance to participate. Consider establishing a pattern of asking
questions of individual students, but explicitly giving them the right to "pass" without fear
of embarrassment. Students often provide excellent responses to direct questions that
they would never have volunteered to answer otherwise. Reticent, but prepared,
students may appreciate TAs/tutors who include them in a discussion by directly asking
them questions.
3.
Reinforce Responses. You may reinforce responses with verbal praise (good!
excellent! etc.) and with nonverbal encouragement (smile, nod). You may also reinforce
a student's response by repeating the response. Support your students. If an answer is
completely incorrect, you might encourage the same student to rephrase or to attempt it
again. Try to provide an atmosphere in which students feel OK about offering tentative
or partial answers, and encourage them in their attempts to elaborate or qualify. If a
student needs assistance in completing an answer, ask if another student can provide it,
rather than providing it yourself.
4.
NEVER ridicule an answer. You may be tempted to do this when a student makes a
foolish response, which indicates that he or she has been inattentive or has not
prepared, but the act of responding is punished by ridicule along with the response. The
student subjected to ridicule is less likely to respond in the future, and other students are
put on notice that they may be subjected to the same treatment. Don't do that to your
students!
5.
Encourage Student Debate. When you are confronted with divergent answers to a
question, it is particularly helpful to get students to talk with one another about the topic.
For example, when two students have each devised synthetic routes to a compound, a
debate between the two on the preferred route is going to be a valuable learning
experience for them and for the class. Such a debate may incorporate the level of skills
required in evaluation problems.
Some Additional Considerations
1.
Do everything you can to avoid embarrassing students in front of their peers. If a
student seems embarrassed, do NOT force him or her to answer a question;
acknowledge a partially correct answer; or consider answering his questions in private.
[For example, a student who fails to make eye-contact with you may well be unprepared
to answer your question.]
35
2.
When a student asks a question, find out if anyone else has the same question. If a
large number of students do, you might:
a.
Review the background material.
b.
Assign an exercise that provides practice in answering the question.
If only a few students want the question answered, consider:
a.
Asking the student (or group of students) to check with you after class.
b.
Asking the student to come to an office hour so you can discuss the question.
c.
Providing remedial exercises (perhaps via e-mail) or help sessions.
3.
In answering a student's question, don't tell him/her more than he/she wants to know.
4.
If the question asked by a student is important for future learning (e.g., it is required in
order to understand the next topic to be considered), try to answer the question right
away.
5.
If a student's question indicates that he/she has not learned materials previously
covered, you might consider working with him/her privately after class, but remember
that although you are responsible for presenting material clearly and giving students
reasonable help if they need it, you can't learn for your students. Students must
invest time and energy in their own education.
6.
If a student asks a question you cannot answer:
a. Don't bluff!
b. Tell the student you will look up the answer and tell him/her next time and
follow through.
c. Or better still, suggest a reasonable strategy that would allow the student to discover
the answer for himself or herself.
6. How are you doing? Getting feedback
Asking students for feedback about your teaching style and teaching ability will help you
become a better teacher. In addition, students will get the impression that you care and that
you are interested in their learning progress. A variety of methods exist, too many to list them
all here, but here are some ideas to consider:
After a few weeks of class, you could ask three questions at the end of a section:
1. Did you get what you came for today?
• If yes, what did you get?
• If no, what was missing?
• If not sure, please explain
2. What are you least sure about at the end of the class?
3. What percent of the confusion was due to:
• unclear presentation of instructor in charge of the course?
• lack of opportunity to ask question?
• the student's own lack of preparation?
• the student's own lack of participation in the classroom discussion?
36
• other?
Halfway through the quarter, you could give students a questionnaire, but before you hand out a
questionnaire to get feedback from the students make sure that you examine your goals in
gathering students' impressions, because different goals imply and require different types of
questions. And remember that if you ask questions, you have to be prepared to deal with the
answers, whatever they may be!
Choosing questions appropriate for your goal(s) might be easier if you identify your goals. For
example, do you want:
1. feedback about classroom events or teacher behavior.
2. students' perceptions of their achievement of the course goals.
3. students' own evaluation of the effectiveness of different aspects of the course.
4. students' comments on their own behavior or thinking in the course.
5. students' overall satisfaction with the course.
7. Getting the Most out of Office Hours
At the first class meeting, tell your students the location and times during which you will be
available for consultation. Consider your office hours to be an important commitment to your
students, but if you MUST change or cancel office hours due to an emergency, be sure that you
announce the change. Don't just fail to show up! Most Biology TAs/tutors spend between one
and two hours a week conducting official office hours. You should ask the instructor in charge
what is expected in your class.
Office hours can be an important part of the learning process or they can be a completely
wasted opportunity. The difference hinges on your ability to motivate students to use this
resource. Some things to keep in mind during an office hour:
Address Individual Problems - As the quarter progresses and you become more familiar with
your students, office hours can be used with increasing effectiveness to address individual
learning problems. For instance, almost every quarter you will teach a few shy students who
consistently do well on written assignments, but who are--at least initially--reticent in class
discussions. In office hours you can meet individually with these students and encourage them
to speak more in class by expressing your enthusiasm for their work and urging them to share
their good ideas with the rest of the section.
In addition to advising students about course material and answering questions from individual
students, office hours can also be used in a number of ways to supplement lectures and
discussion sections. For example, special office hours can be scheduled to discuss particularly
difficult material. Any student needing more work on that material could attend the section
review. Group office hours can also be held for review sessions before exams.
Fairness, Respect and Awareness - In meeting with students during the quarter, try to create a
strong sense that you will treat them fairly and without favoritism. If you are approached by a
student with serious personal problems, refer that person to the appropriate counseling staff
37
person, e.g. Counseling and Psych Services (CAPS) at UCSD. Even though you may want to
help your students, don't allow yourself to be put in the position of surrogate parent or
psychotherapist; the creation of a dependency relationship could be harmful to you and
the student. Do, however, be sensitive to despondent students and refer them without delay to
CAPS/
Students may be critical of a course or faculty member, but feel uneasy voicing their criticism
directly to the professor involved. If you believe that students’ criticism is valid and constructive
and that it could be used to improve the course, you would help both the students in the class
and the professor by politely conveying the criticism to the professor. If you do decide to convey
any critical comments, make sure you do it politely and that you protect the student's anonymity.
As a TA/tutor you are in a sensitive position and should respect the confidences of both faculty
and students.
8. Constructing exams
Suggestions for Constructing Exams - In many courses the TAs/tutors are asked to develop
quizzes or to submit questions for examinations. Writing questions is a great way to test your
own understanding! First, you must decide what facts, definitions, generalizations and values
are absolutely essential to the unit you are teaching. To this list, add the important intellectual
skills you and your professor want your students to acquire. Then write your questions keeping
in mind Bloom’s taxonomy (see pages 26 and 27). Here’s a quick summary of levels of
understanding:
1. memory (recall or recognition of information)
2. translation (deciphering symbols or technical language)
3. interpretation (discovery of relationships among facts, generalizations, definitions, values
and skills)
4. application (identifying issues in life-like problems and selecting the proper
generalizations for
solving them)
5. analysis (breaking down a problem)
6. synthesis (combining the separate elements of a problem to create a coherent answer)
7. evaluation (judging right from wrong according to standards)
After you have written your questions, examine them and classify them according to the
categories of thought involved in answering them. You may find that most of them involve
simply memory, but with a few small changes they can call on a higher level of thought. If you
are TAing in an upper-division course, those changes might be very appropriate.
Final Examinations - Final exams are governed by University-wide rules. Academic Senate
regulations stipulate that final examinations in all classes must be given during the scheduled
examination time period. Deviations from Senate regulations must be approved in advance by
the campus-wide Committee on Educational Policy Subcommittee on Courses. If a change in
time is approved, the final examination must also be given at the original time to any student
who requests it. Students who find it impossible to take a final examination on the scheduled
date must make arrangements with the instructor. Students who have three or four exams on
the same day can check with their professors to see if alternative arrangements are possible.
38
9. Grades and grading
What do I need to think about as I grade students' work? - Grading is a major challenge for
many TAs/tutors. Some new TAs/tutors are inappropriately stringent at the beginning, maybe to
prove that they are not pushovers. Others, who may know their students personally, are
inappropriately lenient. In addition, grades may sometimes reflect personal philosophy and
human psychology, as well as efforts to measure intellectual progress with standardized
objective criteria. Whatever your personal philosophy about grades, their importance to your
students means that you must constantly try to be fair, consistent, and reasonable and to
maintain a grading standard you can defend if challenged. Grades cause a lot of distress for
undergraduates—so much so that it can even overshadow any enthusiasm for learning for its
own sake ("Do we have to know this for the exam?"). However, grades are both required by our
educational system and can be useful to students, as long as they understand what is expected
and what grades mean.
Grades should reflect how successful a student has been in meeting the established standards
in a course. Letter grades serve two important functions: they provide feedback to students,
informing them of how well they are meeting the standards of the course, and they convey to
other people a very concise description of a student’s performance in the course.
The way in which student mastery of the material in a course is determined and graded must
therefore depend course objectives. A clear statement of these objectives helps students
understand what skills and knowledge they are expected to have upon completion of the
course, and it also provides you with a specific idea of what will be tested and what criteria to
use in determining how successfully your students have met the course objectives. Be sure that
you discuss these objectives thoroughly with the faculty member in charge of the course (it's a
GREAT topic for a TA meeting when everyone is present and can participate) and determine
with him or her what methods will be used to evaluate the students, how they will be weighted,
and any penalties, e.g., for submitting assignments late. The evaluation methods and weighting
of various assignments or tests should be communicated to students in written form at the
beginning of the quarter. It's best if the instructor in charge of the course does that, and you can
ask him or her to do it if you need to.
It is important to remember that because of their great value to students, testing and grading
procedures that are poorly handled can break down the rapport you have tried to develop in
other ways and as a result degrade your effectiveness as a teacher.
Responsibility for Assigning Grades - Only the professor in charge of a course has the authority
to assign final grades, but that grade generally is based on scores determined by TAs. As a
result, grading exams and papers is among the most powerful responsibility of any
TA/tutor. It provides feedback to your students to tell them what they understand and what
they need to check on. It can affect their performance on future exams in the course and on
major "gatekeeper" exams like the MCAT, GRE, or DAT. In addition, YOU are—directly or
indirectly—determining your students’ final grades that will be on their transcripts for all time.
YOU MUST TAKE THIS TASK AS SERIOUSLY AS YOU HOPE YOUR OWN TAS DO (or did)
WHEN THEY GRADE(D) YOUR PAPERS AND EXAMS! Grade carefully and thoughtfully; pay
attention to detail. Don’t wait until the last minute and then dash through it, don’t grade when
you are tired, and be sure that you grade in an environment that promotes your very best
efforts. If you approach grading as a mindless chore, you are cheating your students.
39
Before you begin the task of grading, thoroughly discuss with your supervising professor the
grading standards and expectations for the course. If the professor doesn’t initiate the
discussion, be sure that you do. You should become familiar with these expectations and grade
accordingly. No individual student should either benefit or suffer significantly from the "luck of
the draw" that placed him or her in your section. Grading guidelines for the course should be
explained clearly to the students registered for the course at the start of instruction—again, the
professor may do this, but if he or she doesn’t do it, ask the instructor what the students should
know about grading and then pass that information on.
Students sometimes wish to have a grade reconsidered. The faculty member in charge of
the course sets the policy with regard to regrading exams or papers; be sure that you
know the course policy. In some courses, a TA/tutor can change a grade on a test or paper
that he or she graded. However, EVEN IF A MISTAKE WAS MADE a TA/tutor should never
change a grade assigned by another TA/tutor or by the supervising professor. or even discuss
the issue with a student. Instead, the TA/tutor should refer the student to the faculty member
and/or the TA/tutor who assigned the grade, and of course you shouldn’t change a grade just
because a student asks nicely or yells at you and makes threats. If you and a student can’t
come to an agreement, refer the student to the faculty member in charge of the course. He or
she has final responsibility for the conduct of the course, so that is who has the authority to
adjudicate conflicts about grading.
Grade Records - Keep accurate and CONFIDENTIAL records of your evaluations of each
student's performance throughout the course. At the end of the quarter, provide a copy to the
faculty member in charge of the course, AND retain your records for three quarters. If a student
appeals a grade or asks for a letter of recommendation after completing the course, a record of
his or her grades is very useful. University policy requires that unclaimed examination papers
be kept for one quarter after the class is over.
Further thoughts on grading
I. Here are some typical policies governing grading (but be SURE to check with your own
professor so you know the specific policies for your course):
1. Grading criteria: Standards should be specific and uniform.
2. Partial Credit: It can be a useful compromise. Determine how you will award partial credit
points and then be consistent. Check with your professor for help in determining how to
distribute points.
3. No double jeopardy: Don’t subtract points multiple times for the same mistake.
4. How you MARK papers or exams can greatly reduce the chance that students can
change answers and then request that their exam be regraded (which is, obviously, cheating
and is taken very seriously by the University):
a. Clearly circle each answer in red. leaving very little space between the words and
the mark.
b. Mark all blank spaces to prevent students from adding material.
c. Draw a thin red line through words that could readily be changed to make a wrong
answer into a correct answer.
d. If students are allowed to use the backs of exam pages, mark an X through blank
spaces on the back of every exam sheet to indicate it has been checked and nothing
was written in the space.
e. Initial papers you corrected to indicate who graded, and/or use different colors of
ink for different graders.
40
f. If your professor agrees, announce that only exams written in ink can be submitted
for regrade. (Not all professors have this policy, so be sure to check with your
professor.)
II. Here are some typical policies for handling students' requests that their exams be regraded
(but be sure to check with your own professor so you know the specific policies for your course):
1. Requests for re-grading should be submitted in writing.
2. Clearly state the date by which regrades have to be submitted (for example: 2 weeks after
the day when graded exams were made available).
III. Grading Strategies
Make sure you have a good answer key from the instructor and that you understand it:
1. In a large class, skim several exams quickly without assigning any grades. Before you
begin grading, you will want an overview of the general performance and the range of
students' responses.
2. Determine if there is more than one correct response for any of the questions. Make sure
that you understand the instructor's answers before you begin grading, and that the
instructor has indicated the point value of each question and each part of a question clearly!
3. Decide in advance if certain incorrect answers merit partial credit.
4. If you are responsible for grading an entire exam, rather than just a few questions, grade
your assigned exams question by question, rather than grading all questions for a single
student.
5. Choose examples of exams to serve as anchors or standards. Identify exams that are
excellent, good, adequate, and poor.
6. Read the exams without looking at the students' names. Try very hard not to bias your
grading by carrying over your personal perceptions or opinions of individual students.
7. Determine the correspondence between scores and grades prior to grading exams. You
should decide what level of the performance merits a given letter grade independent of how
well your class performs on the test. E.g., if the test is worth 50 points and the top score is
30, does that mean that students who have a score of 30 will have earned an "A" merely
because there is no better score on the test?
8. If you can do so efficiently, write comments on students' exams. Write brief notes on
strengths and weaknesses to indicate what students have done well and where they need to
improve.
The method by which exams are graded is up to the professor of the course, but here are some
ideas. Typically, large lecture classes will have many TAs/tutors. Ask how the professor in your
course assures consistency and therefore fairness in the grading process. For example, it
might be a good idea to:
41
• The TAs/tutors should review the scoring criteria and model answers prepared by the
faculty member. Then the TAs could meet as a group (ideally with the instructor) to
discuss the answers to each question. Decide how many points will be awarded for
which types of answers.
• For essay exams, TAs could establish two- or three person teams for each essay
question. To establish consistency (and if time permits), each team could get 8-10
exams, and each team member should grade these exams independently. The grades
should be compared and the discrepancies should be discussed and a consensus
should be reached.
• After that, each team member can grade independently, keeping in mind the
consensus reached by the group. If any team member is unsure about a particular
exam, that exam should be passed to another team member for an opinion.
IV. Returning Exams
Keep in mind the right to privacy. Make sure that you discuss the "returning-exams" issue
with your faculty! Typically exams should be handed out in class, in sections, or at specific
times and locations. Leaving exams outside the faculty member's door may break Federal
privacy laws. Exam-return policies should be established at the beginning of the quarter and
clearly conveyed to the students.
Evaluation of Students - In lab courses, TAs will often be asked to provide an evaluation of each
of their students. Listed below are some of the criteria that might be taken into account:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Did the student arrive at each lab session prepared?
Did the student manage lab techniques carefully and skillfully?
Did the student THINK before asking questions?
Did the student work independently?
Was the student able to adapt to unforeseen procedural changes?
Did the student maintain a neat and orderly workspace?
Did the student adhere to safe lab practices?
Was the student conscientious about keeping a detailed notebook, working
problems, and generally applying good scientific procedures?
Grade disputes: Faculty and TAs/tutors report that they sometimes find their students assuming
that they can persuade the instructor to change a grade by whining, crying, or other similar
behaviors . Do not change a grade just to get a student to stop pestering you! If a student
becomes too aggressive, break off the conversation, refer him or her to the faculty member in
charge of the course, and promptly report the interaction to the faculty member.
42
III. ETHICAL BEHAVIOR AND INTEGRITY OF SCHOLARSHIP
A. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND BEHAVIOR
Appendix V, Part II, of the University of California Manual of Academic Senate
(http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/) describes faculty responsibilities, ethical
principles, and types of unacceptable behavior. Teaching Assistants/tutors are also expected to
adhere to these high standards of conduct.
As teachers, it is the job of professors and TAs/tutors:
 to encourage the free pursuit of learning in his/her students
 to hold before them the best scholarly standards of his/her discipline
 to demonstrate respect for all students as individuals
 to adhere to his/her proper role as intellectual guide and counselor
 to make every reasonable effort to foster academic integrity
 to respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and student
 to avoid any exploitation of students for the instructor's private advantage
 to protect their academic freedom
All educators are obligated to act in a professional manner and to follow the ethical principles
that all university teachers, including TAs/tutors, must practice. This obligation emphatically
prohibits:
•
Discriminating against any student on political grounds or for reasons of race, religion,
gender, sexual orientation, or ethnic origin, or for any other arbitrary or personal reason
 Failing to meet the responsibilities of instruction; in particular :
a. arbitrarily denying access to instruction;
b. injecting a significant amount of material unrelated to the course;
c. without a legitimate reason failing (1) to adhere to the rules governing faculty
behavior in the conduct of courses, (2) to meet with classes as scheduled, (3) to
keep office hours as required, or (4) to hold examinations as scheduled;
d. evaluating student work based on criteria that do not directly reflect performance in
the course;
e. delaying the evaluation of student work beyond reasonable expectations.

For a TA/tutor, ignoring or refusing to follow the instructions of the faculty member in
charge of the course.

Discussing the academic work of a student with anyone other than the faculty member in
charge of the course and the other TAs/tutors working in the course.

For a TA/tutor, criticizing the course, the instructor or the other TAs/tutors in the
presence of students. In addition, it is unprofessional for a professor to publicly criticize
TAs/Tutors or faculty colleagues in the presence of students.

Exploiting students for private advantage.

Humiliating students
43
Decisions made by TAs/tutors have a significant effect on their students' grades. TAs/tutors
MUST therefore be especially careful not to abuse this power. They are obligated, as a
condition of their position, to evaluate student work as objectively and as fairly as possible. In
particular:
•
TAs/tutors cannot be paid by their students for out-of-class tutoring, because such
students could automatically receive preferential treatment by the TA/tutor. Even if a
TA/tutor in that situation made a great effort to avoid favoritism, the appearance of favoritism
could not be avoided.
•
TAs/tutors MUST avoid romantic involvement with students in their class. Such
involvement makes objective evaluation difficult and may also raise questions of "hostile
environment" sexual harassment. If you are already in a relationship (whether as a friend or
as a "significant other") with a student who wants to take the course you are teaching, you
must notify the professor of the situation and together you can work out appropriate
measures.
B. WHAT IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND HOW CAN YOU PREVENT IT?
Definition of Sexual Harassment
ALL teachers at UCSD (professors, TAs, and tutors) must receive training in how to
recognize and how to prevent sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is a specific type of
discrimination that is illegal under federal and state law and under UCSD policy. It is defined as
unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that is so severe or pervasive that it creates a
hostile environment for a reasonable person. Determining whether particular conduct
constitutes sexual harassment depends on the specific features of the situation. Sexual
harassment may occur between persons who have different amounts of power or between
peers. Although the stereotype is generally of a male harassing a female, females can harass a
male, or a male or female can harass a person of the same gender. Harassment based on
sexual orientation, gender identity discrimination, and gender stereotyping is also prohibited.
Sexual harassment may be verbal, visual or physical conduct. Examples include:
 Direct propositions of a sexual nature;
 Sexual innuendos and other seductive behavior, including pressure for sexual activity
such as repeated, unwanted requests for dates, and repeated inappropriate personal
comments, staring, or touching;
 Direct or implied threats that submission to sexual advances will be a condition of
employment, promotion, grades, etc.;
 Unnecessary or unwanted touching, patting, massaging, hugging or brushing against a
person’s body, impeding or blocking movements or other unwanted conduct of a
physical nature;
 Remarks of a sexual nature about a person’s clothing or body;
 Unwelcome and inappropriate letters, telephone calls, electronic mail, or other
communications or gifts.

ALL FIRST-TIME TAS AT UCSD MUST COMPLETE AN ON-LINE TRAINING COURSE AND
PROVIDE A CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETE TO CONFIRM THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE
COURSE.
The URL for the course is: training.newmedialearning.com/psh/ucsd/. The deadline for
complying with this requirement will be announced at the initial TA training session.
44
Consensual Relationships
In some circumstances, consensual romantic or sexual relationships are of concern to UCSD.
There is an inherent conflict of interest if an individual exercises direct supervisory, evaluation,
instructional, and/or advising responsibilities, or participates in hiring, retention, promotion, or
award decisions on behalf of UCSD, of someone with whom he or she has a romantic or sexual
relationship. In cases where any such relationship either is begun or is on-going, UCSD
requires that effective steps be taken to ensure that the evaluation or supervision of the student
or employee is unbiased, i.e., that it is independent of the consensual romantic or sexual
relationship. Proactive, preventive measures must be taken to avoid ethical conflicts.
The UC Regents have approved a system-wide faculty-student relationship policy that states,
“Whenever a faculty member is responsible for academic supervision of a student, a personal
relationship between them of a romantic or sexual nature, even if consensual, is inappropriate.
Any such relationship jeopardizes the integrity of the educational process.” It is misconduct for
any faculty member or TA/tutor to engage in romantic or sexual relationships with students for
whom the he or she has--or should expect to have in the future--academic, instructional,
evaluative, or supervisory responsibility.
Campus Resources
If you or someone you know has a question about sexual harassment, please contact the Office
for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD). You can leave a confidential
voicemail at (858) 534-8298, email us at [email protected] or visit us at 201 University Center
on the main campus at the corner of Gilman and Myers. OPHD office hours are Monday
through Friday 8:00 am to 4:30 pm.
C. CHEATING AND ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
In recent years, data indicate that cheating has become increasingly common at UCSD. It is
our duty as teachers to discourage cheating. We do that by behaving in ways that make it very
difficult, if not impossible to cheat successfully. Unlike many colleges, UCSD does not operate
on a formal "honor" system. Nonetheless, we would much prefer to prevent cheating, rather
than to catch and punish violators. Above all, we do NOT want to give our students the
impression that cheating is the way to a successful life. Cheating is WRONG, and you need to
cooperate with your professor to do everything in your power to prevent it. The next two
sections contain advice on helping to PREVENT cheating both during and after exams.
But FIRST, if you encounter what you believe to be cheating:
• DO NOT confront the student (either publically or privately) and accuse him or her of
cheating.
• DO keep any physical evidence (the exam paper, the lab report on which you suspect
plagiarism, etc.) that supports your belief that a student was cheating.
• DO notify the professor as soon as you possibly can and let him/her deal with the
problem. Give the physical evidence to the professor, who can forward it to the
appropriate office.
45
• DO write a brief, factual account of the incident and keep it handy. You may be called
upon to describe your version of the incident in a formal review of the incident, and
memory can be unreliable.
Preventing cheating during exams: Before the exam, check with the faculty member in charge
of your course to learn his/her policies and then follow them to the letter. You may be able to
suggest additional practical measures that your professor will adopt and follow in the future.
Teachers who give exams under chaotic conditions are asking for trouble. Honest students will
respect your attempts to properly organize the circumstances under which exams are given.
Giving students the impression that the exams in a course will be poorly proctored provides a
strong message that cheating will be tolerated. We don't proctor to play cat-and-mouse games
with the students. We proctor to make it very clear--from the start--that cheating is
unacceptable, it will be deterred, and it will not be tolerated.
1. Proctor actively during an exam; walk around the room and notice what the students are
doing. Students can be very innovative when cheating, and detecting some strategies
may be challenging. Some students cheat (1) by outright copying from neighbors; (2) by
consulting notes on slips of paper, sleeves, desk tops, the inside of hats, material written
on body parts, etc.; (3) by sharing calculators (which have memories) or (4) even
exchanging exam papers! Make sure students wearing hats remove them so you can
see where their eyes are focused. The hoods of hooded sweatshirts or "hoodies" should
be off the head and on the shoulders.
2. If you suspect a student of cheating, you could stand nearby and make sure the student
knows you are watching them. If that doesn't stop what you think is cheating, enlist the
aid of the faculty member, and/or make an announcement telling the class to keep their
eyes on their own papers.
3. Learn the course policy concerning students who look at others' exams; for example,
you can move the suspected cheater to a new location where he/she can be more
closely watched. Just politely, but firmly, ask the student to move to the location of your
choice. Take note of the students who were within the suspect's view and later compare
the papers of those involved.
4. On closed-book exams, be sure that all notes and books are put away where they can't
be seen or left in the front of the classroom.
5. Proctors can also ensure that no outsider takes an exam for another student; the
simplest way to prevent it is to announce in advance that picture IDs will be checked
when exams are handed in and then actually checking them.
6. Restroom visits pose a problem. Discuss with your professor whether restroom trips will
be allowed, and if not be sure to warn students in advance.. If restroom trips will be
allowed, they should be chaperoned, and the restrooms closest to the test room should
be checked once the exam starts to ensure that no notes or texts have been stashed
there.
Re-grade cheating - The re-grading of exams may be regarded by some students as a golden
opportunity for cheating. Well-organized, but unethical, students may even leave a blank spot
on the exam for later "overlooked" additions. If a student appears to be adding material to
46
an old exam paper, you can Xerox the next exam without telling him/her. If you catch a
student in what you believe to be cheating, immediately consult with the faculty
members in charge of the course. (See page 39 for ways YOU can minimize the possibility of
this kind of cheating.)
Lab Classes - Laboratory reports offer many opportunities for cheating. Groups of students may
find it convenient to work together on laboratory reports, and unless the teacher in charge of the
course has made it clear to the students, you can't fairly judge this practice to be improper. Be
sure that expectations are made clear from the start. In general, all students are required to do
the laboratory work and to fully understand their own reports. ALWAYS consult with the faculty
member in charge of the course if you have any concerns about cheating.
At the initial training session, you heard from Dr. Tricia Bertram-Gallant, who is the Director of
the Office of Academic Integrity. You can find a variety of information about academic integrity
at UCSD by consulting the ethics Web site. Go to <ethics.ucsd.edu>, and under "Education
and Training" click on the link Academic Integrity.
47
IV. EVALUATIONS: At the end of the quarter, the professor in the course will evaluate your
work based on the following criteria. You will be able to view the evaluation after the quarter is
over through the ASES system. Please check your UCSD email regularly for more information.
TA/Tutor/UGIA Evaluation by Instructor
1) The TA was consistently well-prepared for section.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
2) The TA consistently arrived at lecture, section, office hours, and exams on time.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
3) The TA’s Presentation of material was clear.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
4) The TA was an active participant in meetings.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
5) The TA was effective at following instructions and completing tasks on time.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
6) The TA was effective at providing feedback about student performance in the course.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
7) The TA was effective at maintaining any required paperwork (quizzes, grades, etc.) and
providing it when asked.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
8) The TA was genuinely interested in and enthusiastic about teaching.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
9) Please provide additional constructive comments:
48
STUDENT EVALUATIONS: Your students will also be asked to evaluate your performance as
a TA through the campus ASES system. The system will notify you via UCSD email when the
evaluations are active so you can invite students to participate. Once final grades are posted,
you will be able to view a summary of the evaluations at the link provided in the email message.
Please note that, in the interest of protecting student privacy, campus will not provide a
summary report for a TA/Tutor/UGIA if three or fewer evaluations are collected. Watch your
UCSD email for more information.
TA/Tutor/UGIA Evaluation by Students
1) The TA was consistently well-prepared for section.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
2) The TA consistently arrived at lecture, section, office hours, and exams on time.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
3) The TA’s presentation of material was clear.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
4) The TA helped develop my thinking skills in the subject.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
5) Feedback from the TA on assignments was helpful and constructive.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
6) The TA’s explanations were appropriate, being neither too complicated nor too simple.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
7) The TA clearly answered my questions.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
8) The TA was interested in and enthusiastic about teaching.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
9) The TA was accessible outside of class (office hours, email, etc.).
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
10) The TA effectively connected sections with the material covered in lecture.
 Strongly agree Strongly disagree
Not applicable
11) In terms of communication skills, did the TA demonstrate any of the following?
 Too quiet
 Too loud
 Too fast
 Too slow
 Poor grammar
 Used filler words such as “um”
 Other; please describe
 No issues
12) Please describe the TA’s greatest strengths as a section leader:
13) Please describe the TA’s greatest weaknesses as a section leader:
14) Please provide additional constructive comments:
49
IN SUMMARY:
1. The instructor of your course is likely to be your best resource. Be sure you know what
he/she wants from you and from the students, and remember you can and should turn to
him/her (or the head TA) for answers to your questions about practical matters and about
the course material.
2. You are responsible for all of your students. Individual students will have different
backgrounds and learning styles, and they will need different things from you. Try to
provide a varied experience. Check frequently with your students to be sure that what you
are doing is what they need and want.
3. If you encounter cheating:
a. Interrupt it or otherwise stop it ASAP.
b. Absolutely avoid confrontation and explicit public accusation.
c. As quickly as possible, inform the instructor in charge of the course.
4. Be prepared for EVERY class session. Every day when you walk into the classroom, you
should know the material AND what you intend to do with it. NEVER assume you can just
make it up as you go along.
5. Avoid lecturing, unless that is the specific expectation for your class. Don't deliver long
lectures before lab sessions; don't lecture in discussion sections.
6. Remember that as a TA, you are an instructor, and not a student. Treat your students
with respect, and act in a way that earns their respect. Neither abuse your power nor
fritter it away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PRINCIPLES FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC SPEAKING
1. Use visual aids (writing on the board or showing slides or transparencies) that are simple,
easy to read, and attractive (but don’t rapidly flip through lots of Power Point slides.)
2. Figure out good leading questions to ask periodically--and wait for people to answer them
so they can't just passively nod off. If they don't answer, it might be OK to answer the
questions yourself IF you have waited at least 10 seconds after each question to give
students a chance to answer, and you haven't taught your students that you'll provide the
answer if they just wait long enough.
3. Be active. Walk around and modulate your voice so you sound excited about what you're
saying. Your enthusiasm (or lack of it) will be contagious.
4. Structure your talk carefully. Tell your audience at the start what your structure will be and
then follow it. If there's a blackboard, you can write a simple outline of the major sections
of your plan on the board so the audience can follow along
6. For each part of your talk, begin by clearly stating the point you are going to make,
preferably in one sentence, and THEN give the supporting evidence. This
approach keeps your audience from wondering "Why is he/she telling us this? What
should I pay attention to?" and then letting their minds wander. Summarize frequently.