37.5FTE Teaching Assistantship Question

[PhDinPublicHealthHopeful]

Hello all! Just signed my contract for my assistantship. I WILL contact them for the questions I'm asking, but figured I'd ask here first to get insight and perspective.

In YOUR experience, how many courses did you teach when you had a 37.5%FTE (15 hrs/week) or if you had a 50%FTE (20 hrs/week)?

I've taught at the high school and college level, so I feel fortunate enough to continue teaching as it's a comfort zone for me. 

Did those that had a teaching assistantship teach the full course or just part of it?

[TakeruK]

This probably depends so much on the field and the particular program.

At the schools I've experience in, TAships are quantized in hours per semester (with a weekly hourly estimate given as a guideline, but the limits are actually on the semester-total not weekly-total). At most programs, they come in "units" of 10 hours per week (but I was at one school where one unit was 5 hours per week). (**Note: the 5hrs/week per unit is basically grading-only or discussion section only because it's hard to fit both in just 5 hours per week. At this school, the 5hr/week appointment is usually 2 hours face-time with students in tutorials, 1 hour office hours, and 2 hours of prep time---the grading was done by senior undergrads who are paid as undergrad TAs; unfortunately since there is no paid time left for the TAs to attend the lectures, this means the TA does not attend lectures).

So, a student with 20 hours of TA work per week will probably do 2 "units". This might mean being the TA for 2 different courses. Or, it might mean being the TA responsible for grading & discussion sections for 2 sections of the same course. Since doing 2 units of the same course should, in theory, take less time than 2 units of 2 different courses, I can see why some schools might count this as a 15hrs/week appointment instead of 20hrs/week. 

In my field, TAs generally do not teach the full course (although they may cover a lecture here or there). There are sometimes "Teaching Fellows" (TFs) that are graduate students who teach a full course, but when this happens, they are paid a salary instead of by hours. But I know that in other fields or schools, there may not be a distinction between the titles of TA and TF so everyone might be called a TA whether or not they are responsible for course development + teaching or just grading and office hours. 

If you want some anecdotal data: I've had two different type of TA appointments (at two different schools). At my MSc school, I was on a school where it was 4.5 hours/week per unit and in 1 year, I TA'ed 4.5 hours/week for 2 semesters (it was a 2-semester long class). It was a lab course so it was approximately 3 hours in the lab with the students, 1 hour of grading and 0.5 hours of prep time each week (in reality, I front-loaded the prep so I did lots of prep at the beginning and then nothing later once I knew all of the lab equipment). The next year, I had 9 hours/week for one single semester (normally the class has 2 TAs but they decided to make me do the work of 2 TAs in one semester and then not TA at all the following semester). This course was a computer-based lab with lots of assignments, so my time was 3 hours of in-lab time with students, 1 hour of office hours/responding to emails, 3 hours of grading, and 2 hours of prep work (no lectures in this class, it's just the prof, me and the students 3 hours per week in the computer lab learning stuff). 

At my PhD school, it's 10 hours/week of work for one class, but we only TA for one semester per year. My time is spent approximately 3 hours in lectures, 1 hour for combined office hours + tutorials, 1 hour for responding to student questions via email or drop-ins to my office, 3 hours of grading, and 2 hour of prep work (to prepare for the tutorial session plus to do the readings for the class---these are all class I took before, so I just read to refresh myself).