Any experience being a teaching assistant?

[tharsan]

I got a teaching assistant for CSCC09 (Programming on the Web) at UTSC for this fall.
I'm wondering if anybody has any kind of TA'ing experience they'd like to share, as this will be my first time TA'ing.

[trusoulja2g]

I was a TA last year. Being a TA is very easy. If you speak English properly, you're already ahead of the pack.

Are there other TA's for your course? Try talking to someone who has TA'd the course before. Be kind in marking. If a student asks you a question about grading, do not give a definite answer unless you have verified it with the prof or are 100% sure. Also, IMO, don't refer students to the prof (makes you look bad)...ask the prof anything you don't know and then get back to the student.

Make your email known. If you want to be really nice, put extra study material on the course website, or make your own website. If you can give advice on what to study for the tests based on personal experience, it will be appreciated. If you have the time, hold extra office hours a couple days before the tests. Reply to emails promptly.

Don't feel bad if you can't answer all the students' questions.

BTW, how much do TA's make at UTSC?

[tharsan]

BTW, how much do TA's make at UTSC?

$26.50/hr.

Thanks for the advice, what did you TA?
My primary concern is probably not being able to answer all questions :|

[passpass]

Do some homework. Understand xhtml, Javascript, JSP, Servlet, Tomcat, XML. You donot have to be an expert on all these areas. Basic syntax should be enough.
It is not easy to get a TAship for a undergraduate student. You are good. It should not be hard to handle a tutorial. Just prepare it well. Prof. will supply all tutorial documents to you. Good luck.

[Headhunter]

$26.50/hr.
WOW. :eek:

[ttt]

WOW. :eek:

what's he doing in rfd? :lol:

[Seveneighty]

If you speak English properly, you're already ahead of the pack. Ha, ain't that the truth.. :)

[trusoulja2g]

$26.50/hr.

Thanks for the advice, what did you TA?
My primary concern is probably not being able to answer all questions :|

WAH!!?!?!?! Undergraduate? How many hours are you paid for per term?

At Mac, even with the new contract we just signed, we only get $18.50 per hour for 96 hours. I TA'd for accounting last year.

Don't worry about not knowing the answer to every question. Being a TA is a reward for your academic performance. You know way more than any of the students, that's all that matters. Just be a nice guy and help them with their assignments/test prep.

[tharsan]

From http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~csms/jobs_ta.html:

Pay Rates are in accordance with Article 21 CUPE Local 3902 Collective Agreement.

A simple Google query can locate the document (http://www.utoronto.ca/hrhome/cupe3902.pdf), which states that beginning September 1, 2004, salaries are:

Undergraduates (UG) - $7,420.00 per session ($26.50 per hour)

The rate used to be actually posted on the website, but it's been since replaced by the reference to Article 21 CUPE Local 3902 Collective Agreement.

But the hours for computer science are ~ 65.

I know the material in the course pretty well (I did pretty well when I took it last year), but I'm sure I will be stumped sooner or later ;)

Thanks for your input, trusoulja2g.

[weedb0y]

Nice, what about Laurier ones?

[trusoulja2g]

I read the document.
I see that the $7420 is based on 280 hours over the entire academic year. Is that how long you're hired for, and are you guaranteed the $7420? Or are you just paid $26.50/hour for the actual number of hours used in the course (~65)?

At Mac, we're basically paid $1780 for the course regardless of hours worked (usually less than the 96 that we're paid for).

[tharsan]

I read the document.
I see that the $7420 is based on 280 hours over the entire academic year. Is that how long you're hired for, and are you guaranteed the $7420? Or are you just paid $26.50/hour for the actual number of hours used in the course (~65)?

At Mac, we're basically paid $1780 for the course regardless of hours worked (usually less than the 96 that we're paid for).

I'm not actually sure, but I highly doubt we're guaranteed the $7420, I suspect we're just paid the hourly rate of $26.50, for the 65 hours over the term.
I'll be signing the contract in a couple of weeks, so I'll have a better idea then...

[Headhunter]

Yeesh, I should have pushed a lot harder to tutor while in college. There were certainly enough people who got my assistance for free... :-0

what's he doing in rfd? :lol:
Mocking us with his big money ways...

[nsd]

As a TA, if you can't answer the question, don't forget to answer it the next time a tutorial comes around. I've had terrible experiences with TAs saying "I'll get back to you on this one". Of course they never did :D

[trusoulja2g]

As a TA, if you can't answer the question, don't forget to answer it the next time a tutorial comes around. I've had terrible experiences with TAs saying "I'll get back to you on this one". Of course they never did :D

My typical response as a TA: "send me an email"

[jeremy_harq]

how much do TA's at UWO make & what qualifications do you need? grad program? upper year undergrad? etc..?

[f00kie]

Wow, at the pay rate. What year do you have to be to become a TA? Anyone have any info for the St. George (maybe even Engineering) courses?

[jeremy_harq]

i wouldn't mind TA'ing a first year calculus course at western, it's pretty much only marking assignments though

[trusoulja2g]

Talk to the Dean's office of your faculty or program. Most TA positions are accepting applications NOW, so get on it. To be realistic, you usually need to know the prof beforehand. Most profs I know already have people in mind that they want to hire and the application is just a formality.

On the posting, each course usually states what the requirements are. Some courses hire undergrad TAs, others hire grad students. You usually need to have gotten an A or A+ in the course (or whatever the highest realistic mark was).

[dmdsoftware2]

I got a teaching assistant for CSCC09 (Programming on the Web) at UTSC for this fall.
I'm wondering if anybody has any kind of TA'ing experience they'd like to share, as this will be my first time TA'ing.


I TAed CSCC09 at UTSC for the past 4 semesters. You'll love it, but you won't like marking the assignments :razz: .

[dmdsoftware2]

Wow, at the pay rate. What year do you have to be to become a TA? Anyone have any info for the St. George (maybe even Engineering) courses?

For St. George CSC, it is very rare for an undergrad to get hired as a TA. Grads have first chance (under union rules), and undegrads can only be offered a position when all grad students have been assigned their desired TA load.

Over the past 2 years, there has only been 1 undergrad TA for St. George CSC, and that was CSC309.

[ariel]

At U of T in general it is difficult to get a TAship. I was one of the top undergrad students in my dept and was offered a spot in the MA program but no TAship or $$$$. *shakes fist*

That's why I'm going to Carleton!

[yani]

Congrats :)

I have been an undergraduate teaching assistant for numerous CSC courses (A-C level) at UTSC over the past 4 years, so I'll try to share some of the `experience' ;).

First time you walk into that classroom you are going to be nervous (even most experienced TAs are nervous in the first class - just like the students!), but don't worry. Have a think about where you want to go in the first tutorial, you typically won't have as much material as usual and can use some of the time to introduce yourself and the course to the class before you start. Every TA has their own style, I generally like to introduce myself and let the class know I encourage questions, try to be freindly and get an idea of what the class is like (every class is very different). TAs also widely vary in prep time, some TAs can get away with virtually none, other spend hours preparing for a tutorial, find the middle road.

Once you are in tutorial and you start talking you won't even realize there are 30 people sitting in front of you semi-concious, time will fly, and you'll wonder where it all went and why you didn't have the time to cover everything you've prepared (you'll learn how much you can teach soon enough). Of course your students will wonder why time is going so slow...

I had the rather odd experience of TAing in my second year of undergrad. First - don't let your class know what year you are in if you are only a year ahead of them! :) - also don't tell them its your first time (and for this reason I wonder if this topic belongs in these forums). I didn't, but you can imagine why it isn't a good idea. This also ties into the concept of being freindly with students, but not giving them the impression you are their very best friend (its a hard balance to find and depends on the type of person you are). You will get to know many of your students very well, but remember, at the end of the day you are going to be responsible for a very large part of their mark, so be objective when you need to be.

You will encounter a wide variety of students, from the ones who never show up (but you meet in the exam) to the ones who follow your every word religiously, to the ones that fight for every mark you deduct without ever giving in to reason. Never lose your temper with a student (I know it seems obvious but in some of cases its hard).

The easiest way to deal with student's complaints of marks is to be a good marker! Be confident in your marking scheme, explain it to students, and above anything else be sure to be consistent. You should be able to explain to a student why they lost a mark, and if you can write it down on the assignment/a marks sheet (unfortunately much of C09 is subjective making marking C09 assignments hell). Don't mark to make students happy (like a previous post suggests) mark to help them learn! After all the idea of assignments (and to some extent midterms) is to teach the student their mistakes so they don't repeat them.

Marking is evil. Its my opinion that a TA who likes marking more than teaching shouldn't be a TA, and I've rarely met one who does. If you have a concscience you will often find yourself going way beyond the allotted hours in your contract for marking, and the first time you mark will be murder. The pay might not seem so good when you take that into consideration, and if you are taking courses yourself the marking will often be worst for a CSC course right around your own midterms/exams! Try to plan ahead if you aren't like me ;).

The lecturer of the course can make all the difference. Some will want you to do exactly what they tell you for every tutorial/assignment marking, others will basically leave you to your own devices. Hopefully you get one somewhere in the middle. Most of all make sure you keep in communication with them on how the class is progressing and where they plan to go. Remember, you won't likely be attending lectures so its actually hard for you to tell.

TAing is not easy (I'm sorry I don't agree with the previous posts). You should have a very good understanding of the material (hopefully this is why amongst many applicants you are chosen) or at least the ability to get up to speed on it easily, and even doesn't neccesarily mean you can teach it well, you spend much of your own time that you would normally spend studying/doing assignments dealing with your students problems and marking is often a mind-numbing and painful job. At the end of the day the reason I TA is because I enjoy teaching & the experience, not because of the pay. I'd make more money in a term taking a lower wage part-time job due to the small number of hours.

I'd suggest going to experienced TAs and lecturers you know on campus for advice however (or even teaching services which is there for this express purpose) before asking this question on RFD. You will get much better advice in a forum (and I don't mean just web forums) suited to exactly this purpose.

Good luck, and don't let my long ramble scare you :). TAing is a great experience, and there is nothing like teaching a class and watching your students learn and grow over the space of a term.

[tharsan]

I TAed CSCC09 at UTSC for the past 4 semesters. You'll love it, but you won't like marking the assignments :razz: .

you're durdle?

and thanks yani, for your sharing your experiences.

[Tofu Drift Shinji]

I'm in humanities at UT St. George and I've never had an undergraduate TA. I've never even had a TA that wasn't a PhD Candidate. However, I have had people teaching entire courses that weren't PhDs, but that was mostly in summer school.

Nice TAs go above and beyond what they are required to do for the students. My favourite TA had the standard office hour plus extended office hours during essay/exam crunches, plus gave us whatever info he could on tests and exams (which is more than can be said for other TAs who don't really care how well you do), wasn't ever rude (even if people were coming into tutorial with 10 minutes left), cared to learn people's names, was a bit of a joker, knew what he was talking about and was calm and confident in steering the tutorial's discussions. And he wasn't much of a hard marker either. Nice guy all around; he'll make a good prof.

[dmdsoftware2]

you're ...?


Yes, I am him.

Yani's advice is helpful. He has helped me out a lot.

Some specific advice for you:
- Consider holding some extra freeform Q&A tutorials before the scheduled tutorial. It's not really part of the contract, but you can use this time to address questions regarding assignments etc which falls under consultation hours. I tried this last time I TAed the course, and there was great feedback regarding them.
- Also, be ready to address up to one hour of one-on-one questions from students immediately following your tutorial.
- Be careful while marking. C09 marking is an uphill battle. You can easily spend almost all your marking hours on just one assignment. The plan here (like Yani suggests), is consistency and confidence. Develop a plan or a general marking agenda after you talk with the professor and consult a small picking of the assignments. The more you plan ahead for the marking, the smoother the marking will go. I didn't mark assignments when you took the course, but I marked assignments for the semester previous, and I found providing students with a comprehensive marking hit list, brief comment sheet, and general class comment sheet was helpful to communicate feedback to the student without spending too much time. I might still have some templates available.
- Make sure you show up early for tutorial. If you have those dreaded morning tutorials, you'll discover nothing is setup and/or the remote is missing from the lab office. The A02 TAs sometimes forget to return the remote (they have only one remote for the ATOP and the room next to it).
- Get a banks account early - don't wait for one to be given to you. You're going to need it for marking because you'll quickly find yourself running out of space on fissure.
- Bring your own notebook to tutorial. I cannot tolerate the Windows desktop that is hooked up to the projector. It's like working with your hands tied around your back. The notebook should be preloaded with some backup material (copy of your tutorial page) incase the network goes down during tutorial. Since the course material is only on the web, having a backup will allow you to continue with the tutorial in an outage (it's happened at least once every semester I've TAed).
- Buy whiteboard markers. The lab office will provide you with some, but they'll be all dried up except for the yellow marker ;).

Overall, TAing C09 is one of the best courses to TA (at least from the list of courses I've TAed).

Good luck, but most important, have fun!

[friend_4ever]

the difficulty depends on ur workload though

like if u have to mark a few hundred exams or papers to meet the deadline while having exams of ur own, it CAN kill you

[tharsan]

Yes, I am him.

Small world.


Some specific advice for you:
- Consider holding some extra freeform Q&A tutorials before the scheduled tutorial. It's not really part of the contract, but you can use this time to address questions regarding assignments etc which falls under consultation hours. I tried this last time I TAed the course, and there was great feedback regarding them.


This seems like a pretty good idea, but one of the two sessions I'll be teaching is at 9am. Nobody would show up for a pre-tutorial Q&A ;)
But I'll definately consider doing it for my other session.


- Also, be ready to address up to one hour of one-on-one questions from students immediately following your tutorial.


Unfortunately, right after that 9am session (as mentioned above), I have a class. I would have to set up some extra office hours that will work for everybody in that session (although this hour of post-tutorial question-answering isn't required, right?)


- Get a banks account early - don't wait for one to be given to you. You're going to need it for marking because you'll quickly find yourself running out of space on fissure.


How do I go about getting a banks account? Just talk to CNS?


- Bring your own notebook to tutorial. I cannot tolerate the Windows desktop that is hooked up to the projector. It's like working with your hands tied around your back. The notebook should be preloaded with some backup material (copy of your tutorial page) incase the network goes down during tutorial. Since the course material is only on the web, having a backup will allow you to continue with the tutorial in an outage (it's happened at least once every semester I've TAed).


Yes, I had planned on doing this. I know you did the same (I have a Thinkpad too! T40)


- Buy whiteboard markers. The lab office will provide you with some, but they'll be all dried up except for the yellow marker ;).


Heh, I'll try to remember to pick some up =)


Overall, TAing C09 is one of the best courses to TA (at least from the list of courses I've TAed).

Good luck, but most important, have fun!

I'll be taking 4 courses (2 CSC & 2 MAT) this fall to go along with my TA'ing. Approximately how many hours/week will the TA job be consuming during normal weeks, and during assignment/midterm weeks?

Thanks alot for your help dude. Out of curiosity, did Rosselet contact you about TA'ing CSCC09 for fall? Or were you not interested in doing it this term for some reason?

[UrbanPoet]

WOW. :eek:

nothing but a peanut for a Teaching assistant.
they get $20/hr easily..
But they usually only do a few tutorials a week. so they put in maybe 3 hrs of work?
they dont get paid when they arent in the class room as far as i know

[trusoulja2g]

nothing but a peanut for a Teaching assistant.
they get $20/hr easily..
But they usually only do a few tutorials a week. so they put in maybe 3 hrs of work?
they dont get paid when they arent in the class room as far as i know

TA's are paid for hours teaching, preparation, marking, and anything else related to their work. At Mac, we're paid for a set number of hours per term (96) regardless of actual hours worked, which is usually less.

[flyguy3bua]

My contract also has a preset maximum hours of work per term. Works out to $30/hr.

[Mach]

I TA chem at UTSC

$26.50/ hour and the best part is invigilating .. i get the same rate for just standing there

[yan84]

So do you guys need to spend a lot of time preparing before each tutorial or lab? I really wanna be one too coz of the pay but I suck at giving presentations and my english is not perfect.. :|

[Bmp5]

Dont worry about english.If you know your stuffs,you would be fine.

[UrbanPoet]

My contract also has a preset maximum hours of work per term. Works out to $30/hr.

ahh pre-set maximum hours? Meaning if you use up all those hrs and still have work that needs to be finished ur kinda obligated to work extra eh? I guess thats why my t/a's complained of 'not being paid' for 'xtra work'

[trusoulja2g]

So do you guys need to spend a lot of time preparing before each tutorial or lab? I really wanna be one too coz of the pay but I suck at giving presentations and my english is not perfect.. :|

Suck at presentations + English not perfect = your students may not like you the best.

But profs don't really care. TA's are usually just the people who got the highest marks in the class and have the best relationship with the prof. As I said, it's a reward for great academic performance. I consider it more like a scholarship than a real job.

[cchiu]

I TA'ed 1st year Calc @ UTM a few years back. As another poster said, you'll be nervous the first time but after a few classes and getting to know the students, you'll adjust.

I found that the best approach was to keep the classroom "flat"....don't make the students feel intimidated. Make yourself approachable and encourage questions before, during and after class if you're available. Students apprecriate that.

Yes, you get paid $20+ / hour but you don't get paid for all the hours that you work. For example, test marking, office hours, test invigulating (sp?) are not paid for.

Good luck