Teaching Assistant Handbook

Contents

Introduction
Teaching Assignments
Teaching Portfolios
Teaching Responsibilities
TA-Faculty Relationships
TA-Student Interaction
Academic Honesty
Sexual Harassment
More Information

Introduction

Teaching assistants (TAs) and graders in the Carnegie Mellon Philosophy Department are an integral part of undergraduate education. In this role, you will assist the faculty in the instruction, advising, and evaluation of students. In addition, being a TA or grader is an important component of your development as a teacher, and thus, an important part of your preparation for a career in academia. This handbook is designed to provide you with some of the information you will need to meet this challenge.

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Teaching Assignments

Regular Academic Year. For any given semester, e.g., Fall 2008, we must decide on what courses we will actually offer fairly early in the prior one, e.g., Spring 2008. Existing students register online for those courses (in April for the fall and in November for the Spring), and we receive tentative enrollment figures soon thereafter. Based on these enrollment figures and the number of available graders/TAs, we decide the list of courses that will get graders and TAs. (TAs are students who grade and lead a recitation section for the course). We will then send out this list (usually in late November for the spring or in June for the fall), and inquire of the students which courses they would like to be assigned to, and of the instructors which students they would like to have as TAs or graders. Soon thereafter we will circulate a proposal for TA/Grader assignments. It is important to be clear that TA/Grader duties are a paid job in service of providing excellent undergraduate courses. The criteria for making assignments, in order, is:

1. Optimizing the educational experience of the undergraduates.
2. Preparing our graduate students for teaching.
3. Optimizing the preferences of the students and professors.

After a few rounds of swapping people around to accommodate preferences while ensuring the best educational outcome, we will settle on an assignment for the upcoming semester. After this assignment is made, you should communicate directly with the instructor for whom you are grading or TAing.

Our introductory Philosophy course, 80-100, is somewhat special. We typically teach 4 to 5 separate "sections" of 44 students each, where each section has its own 50-minute lecture on Mondays and Wednesdays, and splits up into 4 smaller 50 minute recitation sections, led by a TA, on Friday (1 TA for every 2 sections). The lecturing are usually handled by regular faculty, visitors, or senior graduate students who have been a TA for the course several times and have taught it during the summer; and the TAing by Ph.D. students or Master's students who have a good background in general philosophy. Mara Harrell usually coordinates all "sections" so they are all roughly covering the same body of material.

Beginning in AY 2008-2009, we will begin to have other courses, such as 80-150, have TAs (instead of graders) who will be responsible for grading and leading a discussion section.

There are other courses besides 80-100 for which we occasionally will allow a graduate student full responsibility for the course. For example, we have often had graduate students teach 80-110, the Nature of Mathematical Reasoning. Lecture assignments are made on the basis of intellectual maturity, dedication to teaching, and seniority. Clearly, teaching your own course is an important piece of a teaching portfolio, and the department strongly encourages you to gain the experience necessary to be allowed full responsibility for one or more courses.

Summer Teaching. Carnegie Mellon offers two summer sessions of classes. The first usually begins the Monday after commencement (around May 17th) and goes through the end of June, and the second begins with July and proceeds through the first week in August. The Philosophy department usually offers a half-dozen 100 or 200 level courses during each session, and these courses usually enroll between 2-15 students, some of whom are in advanced High School programs. They meet every day of the week, and are thus compact and quite intense. These courses are taught only by graduate students, by default only those who have graded or been a TA for that course at least twice previously. And, occasionally, a summer course warrants a TA or grader. If you believe you can teach the course effectively having not been a grader or TA twice previously, you may make a case in writing to us and, if we are willing, do so nevertheless.

We decide on our offerings in April, and at the same time send a list of these courses to you and ask if you would like to teach one of them and in which session. We make assignments by the end of April. Summer classes are not guaranteed to even take place unless they enroll at least 3 people.

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Teaching Portfolios

Beginning in AY 2003-4, we will keep teaching portfolios on all graduate students. We will record the courses graded, TAed, or lectured, we will record evaluations by students if they are available, comments from instructors, and we will keep a record of any extra efforts made to improve teaching, e.g., seminars attended at the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, or teaching awards, etc.

In addition to the portfolios kept by the Philosophy Department, the Eberly Center offers a documentation of Teaching Development program. More information is available on the web.

Especially for those interested in getting a job at an institution where teaching is a high priority, this sort of systematic record of teaching experience is very important.

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Teaching Responsibilities

The duty of a TA or Grader is to assist the professor in teaching a particular course. The nature of the assistance required varies from course to course and from professor to professor, of course, but there are some responsibilities upon which there is general agreement.

Graders. In general, graders do not interact with students in a classroom setting. Rather, as the title suggests, they attend classes, grade all of the assignments, maintain grade records, and hold office hours for students who may need help. Occasionally, they may be asked to hold review sessions, paper-writing sessions, or something similar.

TAs. In addition to attending classes, grading assignments, maintaining grade records, and holding office hours, TAs run recitation sections for the course. Currently, we only have TAs for 80-100 (although we may begin to have TAs for other courses as well), and the format is as follows: there are lectures on Monday and Wednesday, given to the entire class (about 44 students) by the professor, and there are two recitation sections (about 22 students each), run by the TA on Fridays. In general, the TAs are expected to direct a discussion about the material in the course during these recitations, and are not expected to introduce the students to new material. More detail about the TA's interaction with students is given in section 5 below. In addition to the responsibilities mentioned above, TAs may also be asked to hold review sessions, paper-writing sessions, or something similar.

Many professors either create their own websites for their courses, or use the course management software called Blackboard. If either is the case, you should familiarize yourself with what the students will be seeing, and how the site will be maintained.

The expectations for both TAs and Graders will be unique to the course and the professor, and so TAs and Graders are encouraged to discuss specifics with the professor before the course begins. More detail about this discussion is given below.

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TA-Faculty Relationships

Your job as a TA is to assist the professor in teaching a particular course, even though the particular form this assistance takes may differ in practice from course to course and from professor to professor. Thus, it is a good idea to make an appointment with the professor as soon as you know what your assignment for the semester will be. Before the course begins, you should have a clear idea of what will be expected of you. The professor has a great deal of latitude in the duties which can be delegated to a TA or grader (although he or she retains ultimate responsibility for the course and grades). You are paid to work 12 hours per week as a grader, or 15 as a TA, and you should discuss with the professor your duties with this time commitment in mind. Among the issues you need to clarify with your professor are the following.

1. What are some of the main course goals? Are some of these goals more important than others for the work I will do with the students?
2. What will my responsibilities be?
   
   1. Attending lectures?
      
   2. Attending weekly meetings?
      
   3. Drafting or revising grading keys?
      
   4. Providing written feedback?
      
   5. Reporting common student errors or difficulties?
      
   6. Preparing quizzes, handouts, assignments, exam questions?
      
   7. Holding regular office hours?
      
   8. Conducting review sessions?
      
   9. Giving guest lectures?
      
   10. Maintaining grade records?
       
   11. Giving a percentage of the final grade based on activities in section meetings?
       
   12. Recording attendance?
       
   13. Proctoring exams?
       
   14. Maintaining or creating online resources for students?
3. Is there a photocopying code for this class that I can use?
4. What do you expect the students to know or be able to do from prior courses? If you expect wide variation in students' backgrounds, is there anything specific I should do in response (e.g. offer tutoring, conduct review sessions, find extra "challenge" assignments)?
5. As a TA, how much will I interact with students? Will students be expected to attend sections meetings, participate actively in discussion, seek help with assignments out of class, or attend help sessions? If section meetings are optional, how can students be encouraged to attend?
6. As a TA or grader, how often will I meet with you to discuss the course? If there are multiple TAs, will we all meet to discuss how to coordinate activities?
7. What are the criteria for grading in this course, and how can I be sure my grading is calibrated to your standards? Specifically,
1. Will we go over any of the grading of assignments together, or will you check my grading of a sample of assignments?
2. Will you provide a grading key or rubric for assignments? If not, should I/may I use my own?
3. How tough/easy a grader should I be?
4. Do you have a desired distribution for grades for each assignment and/or the overall grade for the course?
5. How is partial credit awarded?
6. How will the final grades be determined?
8. If there are multiple TAs, how will we coordinate activities? In particular,
1. How will we divide the grading to insure parity, consistency, etc.?
2. How will we formulate a common answer key or rubric for assignments?
3. How do we make sure we are calibrated with each other?
9. About what policies, if any, do I have authority to make decisions and for what issues do you want me to refer questions to you?
1. Requests for redoing assignments
2. Requests for re-grading
3. Granting extensions
4. Accepting late assignments
5. Giving make-up assignments
6. Responding to suspected cheating or plagiarism
7. Helping a student find additional assistance for personal or academic problems
10. Is there a syllabus for this class? Do you have due dates for all of the assignments and/or tests set before the class begins? If not, how much advance warning will the students (and I) receive about assignments and/or tests?
11. What are the books and/or other materials for this course? Will I receive a desk copy of the text? Will I receive handouts before or at the same time as the students? Will non-text materials be available online? Should non-text materials be made available to students who do not come to class the day they are handed out?
12. What are your policies for this class? Specifically,
1. Requests for redoing assignments
2. Will you allow students into the course behond the cap? If so, how many?
3. Is there a policy for late assignments?
4. Is there a policy for class/recitation section attendance?
5. Is there a policy for how assignments are turned in? For example, can they be turned in via email or the digital drop box, or must they be turned in as a hard copy? If they can be turned in via email, to whom will they be sent?
6. Is there a policy for collaboration on assignments?
7. Is there a policy for redoing assignments?
8. If a student wants an extension, will you send them to me first, or take care of it yourself? If you take care of it yourself, how will I be notified of the outcome?
13. How much flexibility do I have in how I fulfill my responsibilities? Specifically,
1. Requests for redoing assignments
2. What aspects of my teaching are important to maintain consistency across sections or to fulfill specific course objectives?
3. How quickly do you expect me to grade the assignments?
4. How detailed should comments I give on assignments be?
5. If I am maintaining grade records, is there a specific format I should use?
14. In what ways will my work be evaluated?
1. Faculty review of graded exams or papers
2. Classroom visits and feedback
3. Videotaping and review
4. Early or midterm course evaluations
5. End-of-course student evaluations via Faculty Course Evaluations (FCEs)
6. End-of-course student evaluations specific to TA responsibilities

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TA/Grader-Student Interaction

As a graduate student TA, you occupy a distinctive position in the University hierarchy. You are neither solely a student, nor solely a teacher, but a little bit of each. Since it was probably not so long ago that you were an undergraduate student yourself, you are in a good position to empathize with student problems, and build a good rapport with them.

You will be teaching primarily in sections in which the smaller and more personal setting gives the students the opportunity to ask questions about the course, discuss the content of the course, and learn how to express themselves verbally and in writing. There is no recipe for teaching sections successfully, and each TA must develop his or her own style. Nonetheless, we can offer some specific suggestions.

Planning. In most cases, the section should not be another lecture, but rather a setting for the students to interact with each other and you while discussing material presented by the professor. However, this does not mean that the section should merely be a question-and-answer session. Even though you won't be giving a formal lecture, you should be prepared with some sort of lesson plan formulated with an eye towards the goals of the course.

Office Hours. The TA's office hours are an important extension of the classroom that can help personalize a student's educational experience. You should discuss with the professor how many office hours you should hold per week. Generally, it is not required for students to attend office hours, so you might think of ways to encourage them to do so.

Discussion. There are several strategies that facilitate a good discussion. First, it is important to think about using the classroom space wisely. For example, having the students sit in a circle may help differentiate this setting from the lecture setting, as well as encouraging the students to talk to each other and not just to you. Second, learning the students' names quickly helps establish rapport. The easiest way to learn student names is to take digital pictures (we will provide a camera), and attach names to the faces. Third, on the first day of class, set some ground rules for discussion, preferably with the help of the students. Finally, is important to strike a balance between encouraging students to contribute and providing corrective feedback.

Suggestions for rewarding student contributions:
--Talk directly and explicitly to the student who contributes.
--Put student comments on the chalk/whiteboard.
--Make eye contact and use the student's name.
--Listen carefully and ask follow up questions and for paraphrasing.
--Ask the student to restate complex or inaudible comments for the whole class, or do so yourself when necessary.
--Point out specifically what you thought was valuable in the contribution.
--If you see potential in a comment, ask the student for elaboration, application, or continuation of the point.
--Incorporate student points in later material.
--Invite other students to add their reactions to build further on the original point.
--Comment on the thinking process the student has used, as well as the point made
--If a comment is unclear or confused, help the student express the original intent.
--Use non-verbal messages to reward students for the act of participating, regardless of the substance.

Suggestions for providing corrective feedback without discouraging students:
--Be clear about the difference between what is incorrect and what you as an individual can disagree with.
--Before you disagree with or correct a student, restate the point to test your understanding.
--Admit your ignorance. If you don't know something, say so. Refer the student to other sources or offer to get the information.
--When you criticize a comment, ask for reactions. This keeps a dialogue going and makes students less likely to withdraw.
--Be specific in both positive and negative comments.
--When making criticisms, explain your reasons.
--Encourage students to respond to each other's ideas.
--Be sensitive to student pride and fears. In putting forward an idea, a student is also putting self-esteem on the line.
--Avoid any tone of condescension. A student who is working on an idea, however, elementary, deserves respect.
--Recognize the realities of a high-pressure, competitive campus. All students have to worry about grades.
--Leave your ego outside the classroom. Do not try to look good at the expense of a student.

Classroom Management. Establishing rapport with students is important for facilitating the process of education, and it is often easier for you to do this than professors because you are closer in age and experience to the students. As such you are often considered more of an "experienced peer" than an authority figure, making your job both easier and more difficult. You need to find the level of rapport that is the most comfortable and workable for you.

One of the most serious problems that can arise is a challenge to your authority, either in or out of class. Challenges in class might take the form of a student making demands or trying to intimidate you in front of the class. The key here is to defuse the situation by offering to deal with the issue after class or in office hours. Challenges outside of class might take the form of an accusation that you are not qualified to teach and/or evaluate students. Perhaps the best response to this is to refer the student to the professor.

In addition to the points made above, informal advice is available that has been gathered from TAs both here at CMU and at UCSD.

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Academic Honesty

Either the professor or the TA should make clear to the students what the expected method is for citing sources in any type of assignment. In addition, students (especially first-years) may need assistance deciding where citations are appropriate or necessary. Often, cases that seem like plagiarism turn out to be the result of confusion.

However, a TA or grader who suspects deliberate cheating or plagiarism by students should discuss it with the faculty member in charge of the course. Since the faculty member is ultimately responsible for student grades, he or she is also responsible for initiating action concerning violations of standards of academic honesty.

The following is a departmental statement on plagiarism that should be made available to every student.

The straightforward disclosure of the sources used in completing course work is essential to the integrity of the educational process. In that way one acknowledges the ideas of others and helps to highlight what is distinctive of one's own contribution to a topic. It also enables instructors to be more effective teachers by providing an accurate sense of the student's grasp of course material.

Students are expected to use proper methods for citing sources; such methods can be found in style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style, or the most recent MLA Handbook. In general, an acceptable method of citation provides enough information to allow a reader to track down the original sources. You should consult your professor, if you have any questions about which method to use, or which kinds of collaboration or assistance to disclose.

Failure to acknowledge the ideas of others is a serious violation of intellectual integrity and community standards. It is the individual student's responsibility to be aware of university policies on academic integrity, including the policies on cheating and plagiarism. This is available online at: http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/Cheating.html and in the section on "University Policies" in the most recent edition of The Word: Undergraduate Student Handbook.

Students who cheat or plagiarize face serious sanctions at both the course level, and the university level. At the course level, faculty at Carnegie Mellon University have significant discretion to determine the sanctions that are appropriate to individual cases of cheating and plagiarism. Within the Philosophy Department, it is customary to give plagiarized assignments a failing grade and, where appropriate, to fail students for the course. Additionally, a letter is sent to the Dean of Students indicating that the student in question has submitted plagiarized material and received a course-level sanction. Plagiarism is also a violation of the community standards of Carnegie Mellon University. As such, allegations of plagiarism may be brought before a University Academic Review Board which will determine whether a violation of community standards has taken place and level additional sanctions if appropriate. Although this body also has significant discretion over the sanctions that it levels, plagiarism can result in academic probation, suspension, and even expulsion.

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Sexual Harassment

Carnegie Mellon University is committed to maintaining a work environment free from sexual harassment. The policy on and definition of sexual harassment can be found online and in the section on "University Policies" in the most recent edition of The Word: Undergraduate Student Handbook.

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More Information

More information, advice, and discussion about good teaching practices can be found at the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, located in 120 Cyert Hall. Information about incorporating technology into your teaching at the Office of Technology for Education, located in 101 Cyert Hall.

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