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

Typically, 1 TA will be assigned for every 35 students enrolled in a course.

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 an Assignment of Duties form for each TA for your course. You will receive an email from MUO when the form is open. 

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.