CS8801 - Graduate Teaching Assistant Workshop

Meetings: Monday 4-6pm for 7-8 weeks

Location: ES&T 1205

Instructors: Richard LeBlanc rich@cc.gatech.edu CCB 133

Leo Mark leomark@cc.gatech.edu CRB 290

Course Objectives:

• To make you the best Graduate Teaching Assistants you can be.

Grading:

• One credit hour course.
• Attendance and participation are mandatory.
• Grading is Pass/Fail.

Topics/Activities:

• Responsibilities of Faculty/Teaching Assistant
• Grading (guidelines, consistency, fairness, feedback,, ..)
• Academic Integrity (w/Karen Boyd) Presentation
• How to Deal With Usual Unusual Situations (students failing, health, family crisis)
• Faculty Panel: What do we expect from a good teaching assistant
• Graduate Student Panel: What do we expect from a good faculty
• Sensitivity/Diversity: Gender, Race, Religion, Culture (w/Maureen Biggers) Presentation
• Q/A for New TAs: Submit any relevant question and get an answer
• WAR Stories from the trenches told by Faculty and Graduate students

Project:

• Create the Faculty Graduate Teaching Assistant Evaluation form, to be used by faculty for evaluations of teaching assistants.
• Create Student Graduate Teaching Assistant Evaluation form, to be used by students for evaluations of teaching assistants.

Evaluation:

• All participants of this workshop must evaluate it at the end.

Date	Workshop Topics
8/16	Responsibilities of Faculty/Teaching Assistant (Mark)
8/23	Grading
8/30
9/13
9/20
9/27
10/4

Being a Teaching Assistant at the College of Computing

The Job Is

· Assist

· Grade

· Advice

Workload

· All GTAs are expected to work 15 hours / week.

· Some weeks you will be working more, some weeks less. If you find yourself working more than 15 hours on a regular basis, you need to let the instructor know.

· If you’re working less than 15 hours and you’re not fulfilling your responsibilities to the students, you will be in danger of losing your assistantship.

· You must maintain a minimum of 3 office hours.

· These should be spread out in such a way that all your students can reach you.

· Make sure the students know how to get in touch with you through email.

· You will receive an email asking you for your office hours so they can be posted.

· You must be a full time student.

· This means that you have to maintain at least 12 credit hours worth of classes. You should check Georgia Tech’s regulations to be sure.

Professionalism

· Care about your job.

· Your job is to help the students to learn the material by direct teaching in office hours, or through comments on their assignments and tests. Try to be helpful and understanding.

· Maintain professional standards with anything that the students might see, such as web pages, course materials, and feedback.

· Be Prompt and Timely.

· You should be on time for office hours, labs, classes, and recitations. You should especially be on time in returning grades.

· You should also answer emails and newsgroup posts as soon as possible. It will make your life a lot easier.

· Stay in touch with the Instructor.

· You’re the link between the class and the instructor. Let the instructor know how the students are doing in the class or if there are particular things that need attention.

· Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

· If you run into a problem with the instructor, make sure to discuss it with them as soon as possible. If you’re not comfortable with this or are unsure of what to do, talk to Richard LeBlanc or Leo Mark as soon as possible.

· Keep good records.

· Make sure you keep a record of class emails, assignments, and grades for the quarter.

· Save these somewhere, even after the class has ended.

Office Hours

· You should hold office hours at a location connected with the campus (i.e. not your apartment).

· Check with your cubicle/office mates before holding office hours there. If you think you will be bothering someone, arrange to have your students meet you in the student commons area or some other public place (like the library or unused classroom).

· Respect the student’s privacy. Check to see if they have questions that are general or specific first. Try to deal with them on a 1:1 basis if possible.

Questions Teaching Assistants Need to Ask Instructors

Instructor-TA Relationship

• What will I be responsible for as a TA?
• How much input will I have into the course?
• How often do you want to meet?  (At least 1/week, set up a regular time and day)

Knowledge

• What background or skills do I need to have to TA this course?
• What should I read/study to catch up?

Class Philosophy

• Is this course required for the major?
• How does the course relate to other courses in the curriculum?

- Are there prerequisites?

- What will students have to know on leaving the course?

- What kind of backgrounds do the students have?

• What are the overall objectives of the course?
• How does this course relate to the expected careers of students? (Useful for developing examples or scenarios to explain course concepts.)
• Who has taught / TA’d this course before?

Class Logistics

• When and where does the course meet?
• When and where do the recitations / labs meet?
• Does you want me to attend lectures?
• How many recitations / labs am I monitoring?
• How many office hours should I maintain?
• What will I be responsible for besides grading and office hours (lecturing, photocopying, etc.)? 
• Will the amount of work I have take more than 15 hours / week on average?  What will the peak times be?
• Will you be out of town during the term and will I have to teach class that day?
• Will you be requiring students to monitor the class newsgroup?

Class Materials

• What textbooks, notes, and references are required or recommended for this class?
• Is a College copy of the textbook available for my use?
• What are some of the strengths/weaknesses of the book?
• Do you want me to set up and maintain a Web Page for this class?

- Is there a Web Page available that I can reuse?

- What should the contents of the Web Page be?

- What do you want linked to the Web Page?

Grading

• How will final grades be determined?
• How many assignments and exams will there be?
• Will I be constructing the assignments and/or exams?
• Will you be providing grading criteria for the assignments/exams that you design?
• Do you have expectations of the quality of the work that the students produce?  (Some instructors like to grade strictly, others don’t.)
• What is your late policy on assignments?
• Do you want students to have access to the grading criteria and solutions after the class?
• Are we using a computer program to store the grades?
• How often do you want grade updates?
• When is the final exam?

Labs / Recitations

• What is your goal for the labs / recitations?  What should students learn from them?
• Are all students required to attend labs / recitations?  Can they collaborate and discuss answers?
• Will you provide me with a lesson plan for those sessions?

Programming Assignments (CS classes in particular)

• What kind of programming resources will the students require?  (disk space, memory, time)
• Have these been set up yet?
• What language will they be using?
• What references are you recommending?
• What tools (compliers, GUI builders, etc.) do you want the students to use?
• Do you have grading criteria for the programs?
• What kinds of problems will the students encounter while programming this assignment?