By Kristin Danhoff, Ph.D
There is a lot to manage in the classroom [campus and virtual] in non-pandemic times. Given the increase in need, complexity, and emotional responses to the multiple pandemics we have inside and outside our institutional doors, we may be looking for avenues of support and opportunity. Teaching Assistants (TAs) can be very effective support and learning opportunities for students and educators.
While the logistics that surround the use and support of TAs will vary by institution and departments, there are similar functions and benefits for student, for the TA, and for faculty. All of which benefit and support student learning, growth, and leadership. I am always so happy to see the growth and leadership that TAs exemplify – strengths found that students didn’t believe they had!
Some key elements that have been considered when making these shifts during the pandemic, and support online learning at any time, have been community, presence, inclusiveness, discussion, equity, trauma, and many others. Creating pedagogic partnerships (Hill et al., 2019) can be powerful ways to support learning and wellbeing. TAs can be used to support those partnerships.
- Community:
- the ability to see a strength and/or skill in a student, let them know you see that through offering a TA position, and then to support that student creates community.
- To have a peer serve in the role of a TA provides current students a sense of community with upper class peers (often they are in different locations in programming) and a guide to get through the course work.
- To have a peer – who may be similar or different from them in some way – serve in a leadership role, can provide a role model, hope, opportunity, or belonging for a student.
- Leadership opportunities:
- Having a faculty member reach out to offer a TA position is sometimes just what a student is looking for. They have wanted the opportunity to get more experience in leadership and being a TA would help that goal. As noted previously, some students have never had someone reach out – seeing their potential. They can gain leadership skills and often, gain essential confidence and experience.
- Voice:
- Having a student voice in decisions about class, having a student perspective while thinking through planning, and having a student voice that can share the pulse of the course is incredibly valuable. It elevates the student voice in the course.
- Teaching support:
- there are tasks that are important to student learning that do not need to be done solely by “the instructor”. In fact, having a peer leader’s voice in any discussion can be very powerful and more pointedly, students respond to TAs in online discussions.
- Having a TA take a leadership position in managing online discussions can free up “the instructor” to attend to those tasks and roles that are solely theirs.
- To have a TA manage small group work can free the students to worry less that their instructor might jump into their online group and engage with the activity.
Some key points to think about when choosing and working with a TA:
- Prior and current relationship with the student
- Student’s performance in the course where you want them to TA
- Student-Instructor match: if the student is more independent, does that work with your style or vice versa?
- Student interest (yes, they may turn you down)
- Time – while TAs do help instructors with tasks that reallocate some of their time, supporting – working with – developing the skills of a TA takes time! They need and deserve that time and support. Work with the TA to prepare them as much as you can.
- Power – Between you and the TA. Between the TA and the students. And any variation on those components.
- Role – they are a student. Remembering that they are in unique positions of holding some power in the course and not holding power in the course in any given interaction. This also guides decisions for what tasks they are responsible for (best advice: they do not “give grades”)
- Communication!
While we are currently focused in supporting students through pandemics inside and outside our classrooms, the use of a teaching assistant can transform your online work at any time! Students find hearing from their peers – students who have been there, done that – extremely helpful. It provides a sense of community in way that instructor only interactions do not. And in the midst of pandemic shifts, it can provide a space for mutual aid, social support, and wellbeing.
Hill, J., Healey, R. L., West, H. & Déry, C. (2019): Pedagogic partnership in higher education: encountering emotion in learning and enhancing student wellbeing, Journal of Geography in Higher Education https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2019.1661366