me? TA?

[smellie]

I still have my dear, dear TAs in classes, and the thought of me being TA next year is terrifying. I mean, one day I'm being graded by TAs, and in the span of 3 months, I will be the one who's grading their papers. I'd have to give tutorials, or have to talk to undergrads (so weird saying this, considering I'm still one of them!) as a TA. It freaks me out

How did you go about dealing with being a TA? Especially when you yourself was trying to get used to the whole grad school experience?

What kind preparation, or problems did you have?

p.s. I'm in humanities.

[even_it_up]

It does seem so daunting and impossible, but like everything else in the grad school experience, you just figure out how to do it. I assumed I would have a mild TA assignment in my first year, but when I arrived on campus I found out I was to be a lab instructor (meaning I had to teach two sections of an 80 minute lab/discussion for a Research Methods course) for a 300 level course. It was a crazy work load because I had to prepare my lectures and have office hours and do tons of grading. But like I said you just figure it out and you do it. Hopefully your school will have some resources to train first time teachers. At my university this was a one day seminar for teaching fellows. Your advisor and other grad students should be able to give you some tips and support as well. And don't forget, you're not the only one. Everyone else in your cohort is just as freaked out as you are. Good luck!

[engguy]

First of all, congratulations! :shock:

You're embarking on a really exciting and challenging journey. Frankly, I don't know how you youngsters do it -- I was 30+ when I did my first TA-ship, and very nervous.

Just know that you will be nervous, you will make mistakes, and it will be overwhelming at first. There's really nothing you can do to properly prepare yourself, so given the amount of work you'll soon have to do, perhaps you should just relax and not worry about it. But if you're really fastidious and want some practical advice, maybe talk to / observe some of the TA's at your current school.

My advice is simply this: Be organized. Between your TA duties and regular schoolwork -- most programs require three seminars with TA -- you will have to be really on top of your time. Know that the students you teach (depending on the type of TA you have) will most likely be freshmen, and thus even more nervous than you are. Know that although you must take the TA seriously, you are primarily there to pursue your studies -- so make sure that remains your top priority. Many's the time I've had to come to class less prepared than I wanted to be, because I was up late finishing a paper. (See the first item -- be organized.)

Finally -- have fun!

[LaraAnn85]

From what I've heard, you usually would just be a TA for a lower level intro course. When I visited schools most first years said they were a TA for Psych 1, which anyone who is going to grad school for psych would be able to do without a problem. Those kids would mostly be freshmen and ~4 years younger than you, of course there will be some older but that's ok. By the time you TA for upper division focused classes, you should be prepared. I'm sure sometimes you get stuck with classes outside of your specialty, but the professor should give you all the information you need to do a good job. Anyway, I'm sure it won't be horrible. I got an RAship and I'm stoked about not having to TA right off the bat, but I'm planning to do it by choice further down the road just for the experience

[4givn1]

If there's any possibility you could survive doing more challenging TA work (such as, designing and leading lab sections, designing and teaching units for courses, etc.) do it. Take teaching seminars, classes, workshops, etc. as well. Even go for teaching your own courses as soon as you can.

I had a really easy set of TA responsibilities as a Master's student--just grading, occasionally making tests, copying, and once or twice subbing for professors when they were out of town--with everything already made out and planned.

What happened after I graduated that summer was I started a job as a full-time instructor in my field, and I was so underexperienced and unprepared. I had to do everything from scratch at almost a full time faculty workload (they did have some mercy on me) while also learning how to teach. I had to spend every last minute planning (including sleeping time, and yes that did cause a lot of problems). This caused no confidence (I'm conscientious) and that made things even worse.

If you have as large an arsenal you can when you start, you'll be less stressed getting things done. For some of us that have disabilities hindering even the best time management efforts--it's even more important. Start as early as possible. Part of my problem was that I found out I had the job right as classes were starting. Watch what you give them--don't assign more work than what you can handle yourself. If you have time to do so, start seeking out course materials now, and find books and such with a lot of material already pre-made. You can design your own activities and get creative after you've had some years of experience under your belt and have time to do it. If you stick with materials with a lot of pre-designed, tried and true extensions, discussion questions, and activities things will go better, you'll be scrambling less to fill out the time, and you might even come overprepared and have less planning to do for the next day.

I agree about knowing your students as well. I attended bigger universities both as an undergrad and Master's student and students were generally at a higher level of ability than the students at the school I currently teach. Since I didn't know any better, I based a lot of my classes off of personal observations at previous schools and judged the students' abilities likewise. There is also a cultural difference (it's out West, I'm from and attended schools in the East). On many accounts, I was wrong and have been having to correct my assumptions. Most of this will probably have to come from experience but extensive conversations with people there can help.

[Biologic]

As others have said, it will be challenging, and since you have never done anything like this before, you will probably be quite nervous the first few days. My first teaching experience was as an adjunct faculty member at a university, a position I currently hold. I got the call 2 days before the start of the semester, and with no teaching experience prior...well, I am sure you get the point. My responsibilities include lecturing to about 95 students twice a week and instructing several corresponding 2 hour labs of a science course. You, as a TA, will likely have far less responsibility than this. You will perhaps be leading a course recitation, a lab section, or helping out with a professor in lecture. The possibilities of your responsibilities will vary depending on your field of study, and the nature of your assistantship.

Bottom line is, expect that it will be hectic but I guarantee you that after a couple of weeks, you will find your groove and quickly adjust. I thought my stomach was in my throat the first week, but this quickly dissipated and it became the most motivational and delightful experience of my life. I will be starting a Ph.D. in the fall, and I will be on a fellowship so I will no longer be required to teach. However, I will likely choose to do so if time permits for a semester or two just to get to experience teaching different courses and get back to interacting with students. Who knows...you may find yourself really enjoying the experience!

To add some advice here, as others have said, if you are aware of the position and course you will be teaching ahead of time, use this to your advantage. Obtain a syllabus, start preparing materials, and mentally prepare as soon as possible. I wish I would have had more time after obtaining my position to be able to prepare. If you are lecturing for a course, run through it many times so that you feel like you can effectively pace yourself under class time constraints. This is something I still struggle with from time to time after 8 semesters of teaching the same course! One thing you can do to help with this is to prepare for any questions students may have. By doing so you can quickly and effectively answer such questions without killing alot of time. Sometimes this is ok, but I often find myself more behind my schedule than ahead. Still, after doing this a few weeks it becomes second-nature in many ways.

Lastly, again as others have stated in perhaps different ways, if you have to TA then make sure you are getting something out it. What I mean is, that even if teaching isn't your end goal after grad school, find some way to make the most of it and come away a better more knowledgeable person. This may sound corny, but I have grown considerably as a person from my experience, and have gained many valuable skills as a by-product of teaching. I feel the most important things you can take from it are a) you will learn how to effectively interact with students, and in general, others, and teaching forces you to learn intricate details of a subject. Even if you have taken it or a similar course before, you will learn much more from trying to relay the information to others. That said, if you have a chance to choose the course you teach, do so, and choose one related to your interests or in a related field of study. This will broaden your knowledge base and certainly ingrain many concepts which may prove valuable to you in school, or later on.

[Minnesotan]

I find that being a TA is all about approach. You get out of it exactly what you put into it. The first time I was a TA, I was extremely nervous, but luckily my responsibilities were mostly behind the scenes -- I only had to lecture once per term. I've been lucky enough to be able to dip my toes in a few times, and gradually get wet before being tossed into the deep end this year.

Nonetheless, I have had a great time with my kids these past two semesters. Once you realize that teaching isn't that stressful, it becomes a lot of fun. Most of your students are there voluntarily, which helps a lot because they actually want to learn. If you can get them to look at the world of ideas in a new way, and maybe improve their atrocious writing skills (grr!), then you have done a better job than most TAs before you. It's really that simple. You don't need to be Robin Williams shaking things up at a snooty prep school to be a good teacher; mainly you just need to care about your students.

But I'll echo what people said above -- put yourself first. Yes, it's great to leave ten pages of helpful comments on every assignment. Boy do I feel conscientious when I do that! However, you're lucky if you have three students read them. Don't waste your time getting too cute; instead, save your energy for the very few students who care enough to visit you during office hours, ask you to look over early drafts, and generally go out of their way to improve themselves. These are the kids on whom you're going to leave the deepest impression. Try to get the others excited (and don't ignore them by any means), but the folks who want to fail are going to fail. You have to get over that little factoid early on in your career. It will save a lot of heartache later on.

[Biologic]

I just wanted to second what Minnesotan said about student motivations. Students that do not care if they get a passing D or C won't work any harder than that grade requires. It is definitely true that some students go out of their way to do well in the class, and these students certainly take advantage of your office hours and assistance. This is a big part of what makes it all worthwhile. You can't save those that don't want to be saved, but helping those that need it is what it is all about. The challenging part, and this depends on your responsibilities for your assistantship, is to learn how to target the class appropriately. Early on, I made some tests too hard, tinkered and eased it back a bit, and made some a little too easy. Over time, I found the approach that consistently covered my material at the right difficulty level and this allowed me to start focusing my efforts to guide students through the material. Very, very rewarding when this occurs. It may take awhile, or you find you have a knack right away...but this challenge is part of what makes teaching fun for me!

[smellie]

Thanks guys, all this is really helpfull. I have a new found respect for my TAs now..

As you all mentioned, I'm worried about balancing my own time and time for my students. I tend to get carried away with non-curricular activities, and I'd have to work very hard to keep my focus :S

I'll be in contact with the department to see if I could get my hands on syllabi. I now have 4 months of summer with no plans, so it'd be nice to just read away the required readings..!

[StudyMom]

Hi smellie,

Thanks so much for starting this thread -- it was great to read about other people's fears and know that I am not alone! As so many have said, I expect we will be fine once we start.

I also know that it isn't just us newbies who feel the butterflies -- I have a friend (much older than me!) who has been teaching Romance Languages for 38 years at a small, private college. He says that even after all these years his stomach hurts right before he teaches a class!

Best of luck,

StudyMom