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Show lessons, fail 2001 page 5 Respect, Affection, Balance, Power: Establishing Relationships with Teaching Assistants BY JEN WARDELL PHOTOS BY LONNIE DANLER To some, they're just the people in the corner of the classroom. Others, however, see them as lifelines in an unfamiliar territory. Who are these people? They're teaching assistants, otherwise known as TAs, and they're all over the University of Utah campus. The most important place they can be found, however, is in the large-format classes. These classes, which can be found in all departments, contain anywhere from 50 to 300 students with wildly different interests and learning levels. But what are the TAs there for? For teaching assistant Emily Plec, teaching is also a learning experience. "Graduate students used to teach their own, smaller classes. But now, with the way the U has gone with semester hours, they're more likely doing discussion and lab sections in conjunction with large classes taught by professors," says Laura Seklemian, coordinator for TA training at the University's Center for Teaching & Learning Excellence. So that's the official version, at least. Unofficially, however, that's just the beginning. Not only do they teach discussion and lab sections, but TAs also grade written work and quizzes, hand out assignments, answer questions, provide office hours, and basically keep the professor from suffering a stress-related psychotic episode. Of course, most of these duties aren't officially mandated. There is no school-wide policy on what exactly a teaching assistant should and should not do. There are departmental guidelines, but they only apply to the immediate situation. So how does the teaching assistant know what to do? By developing a relationship with the instructor. Sometimes, the boundaries decided on are fairly definite. "My duties in English 3702 are to grade quizzes and make myself available for student consultation," says teaching assistant Jason Pickavance. "It's up to the individual professor as to how he or she want to use the TA - within reason, of course." Other times, a teaching assistant's duties depend on the situation. "Part of it depends on experience," says political science professor Robert Benedict. "Grading written work is primary, but I encourage TAs to give a lecture on a subject they're interested in." Many of them, though, focus on the student. "Our professor introduced the teaching assistant to us the first day of class," says sophomore Becky Jones. "He let us know that the TA was there for us." To many TAs, assisting a professor in a large-format class is a big job - even a scary job. How do TAs do what needs to be done without suffering stress-related psychotic episodes of their own? |
