Working with Teaching Assistants (TAs)

Undergraduate Group Overview | ISC Services to Instructors | ISC Course Allocations | Resources for Instructors

SAS graduate students provide incredible support to our courses as teaching assistants (TAs). Support from TAs is provided in many ways, including (but not limited to):

  • Proctoring
  • Marking
  • Office hours (Book these hours with the Tutorial Centre)
  • Discussion forum monitoring
  • Running tutorials

Assignment of TAs

As an instructor, you will have 1 TA assigned for approximately every 35 students you have enrolled in the course. TAs are assigned based on your preferences, the graduate students’ preferences and course requirements.

Timeline of the TA Assignments

The process for assigning TAs to your course(s) begins about 2 months prior to the start of term and ends about 1 week before classes begin.

  1. Instructor TA Duty Preference Form: Instructors fill out a form with their preferred TA duties, responsibilities, and expectations.
  2. Graduate Student TA Preference Form: SAS graduate students fill out their preferences and qualifications as a TA. This includes courses, TA duties, and Foundations training progression.
  3. Instructor TA Preference Form: Instructors receive the list of graduate students interested in being a TA for their course(s) and provide their preferences on which TAs would best fit their course(s).
  4. Preliminary Assignment: Our TA assignment database performs preliminary TA assignments based on the results from the various forms.
  5. Final Assignment: Final adjustments are made by the team and TA assignments are sent out with the Letter of Appointment.

**Please note that this timeline is approximate. Timing can change for a variety of reasons including changes in available TA funding. If you have questions, please email the Graduate Studies Manager.

Coordinating TAs

As an instructor, unless you are receiving support from an ISC, you will be responsible for coordinating the TAs for your course. When coordinating your TAs, please keep in mind the following:

  • Policy 30 establishes the principles and responsibilities of graduate teaching assistantships.
  • A single TA unit is 80 hours. However, 3.5 hours are always allocated to the Math Faculty proctoring pool, which means TAs should not be assigned more than 76.5 hours of work.
  • TA hours can vary over the weeks based on their duties and deadlines. However, TAs should not be working on average more than 10 hours per week (5 hours per week per TA unit).
  • It is necessary to complete a TA agreement for each TA for your course. This can be done using the PDF form or the online system that is emailed to you at the start of term.
  • The department’s SAS TA Program can help support your TAs in understanding their role, expectations, and training and resources for their duties.
  • TAs are graduate students first and their graduate work is their priority. Many are taking courses, have deadlines from their graduate work and are a TA for two courses. It is necessary to understand this and accommodate their graduate work when assigning work.

Being able to effectively teach your course and coordinate your TAs can be a difficult balancing act. Following some best practices can help make the balance much easier:

  • Start the term off well by having an organizational meeting. This is a great way to meet your TAs and create an understanding of each other’s expectations.
  • Take an empathy-based approach. Be understanding of the TAs busy schedules and check in with them for feedback or when there may be a disconnect or misunderstanding in expectations.
  • Make use of easier communication methods such as Teams chats and channels. This is a great way to reduce the number of emails and create a more collaborative and communicative team dynamic.
  • Be transparent. Provide clarity on how the workload is distributed between your TAs and your expectations for specific tasks. Using a shareable and editable spreadsheet or a TA Information and Calendar (docx) document can help ease being transparent.
  • Trust and flexibility go a long way. It can be easy to fall into micromanagement territory when wanting to ensure a successful course delivery. However, almost always hyper-vigilance creates more work and strain on both you and the TAs.

If you’re overwhelmed or having difficulty finding the best way to coordinate your TAs, consult with the ISC team, and we can help find an effective coordination strategy that works best for you and your TAs.