What is it?
At UBC, instructors may be assigned Undergraduate Student Teaching Assistants (UTAs), Graduate Student Teaching Assistants (GTAs) or Senior TAs (STAs) to assist with several teaching duties (e.g., lecturing, marking, running labs, leading discussions, etc.) in their classrooms under their supervision. UBC TAs are represented by CUPE 2278 which determines the basic TA rights (e.g., wages, vacation, sick leave, seniority for future appointments, etc.) at UBC.
Teaching Assistants bring new perspectives into teaching. They are often more aware of the student experience because students often feel more comfortable approaching them and sharing their learning challenges or personal difficulties. When faculty members and TAs work as a team, instructors are better able to tailor their teaching approach to the needs of their students. Working with instructors as a teaching team is an excellent opportunity for TAs to develop crucial teaching skills and practices, discover their strengths and areas of growth as instructors, and potentially to prepare them for a teaching role. TAship is often the main source of funding for GTAs and STAs. For new instructors, having a TA is an opportunity to take on a formal mentorship role, contribute to someone else’s career, and to demonstrate educational leadership.
Considerations
Here are a few best practices to establish a positive working relationship with your TA:
- Consider your TA as a member of your teaching team: Share responsibilities, opportunities, and discuss the teaching of the course with your TAs as you would any junior partner in an academic setting.
- Meet with your TA at the beginning of the term: Mutually establish expectations, responsibilities, and support for their work as a TA in your course. Some important things to discuss include:
- Make a connection: Introduce yourself and help set the tone for your working relationship. Will it be formal/informal? structured/emergent?
- Clarify expectations around communication between the teaching team and students.
- Review the course and university-level procedures and policies: Make clear to your TA the sorts of circumstances they need to refer to you (e.g., academic misconduct) and those that they are trusted to exercise their own judgment on.
- Share your course and session level outcomes with your TA: Knowing the expected outcomes can help your TA align their feedback to students with those expected outcomes.
- Schedule regular check-in meetings with your TA: Check in on their workload, align your teaching approaches, exchange feedback, and offer support.
Where to start
TA assignments at UBC are done at the unit/department level and depend on many factors including the unit/department budget and the number of students registered in the course. Reach out to your colleagues or department head for more information about TA assignments.
When you are assigned a TA:
- Make sure to review the CUPE 2278 Quick Guide for teaching assistants. This guide is written for TAs, but it can also be very helpful to instructors to be aware of TA rights as laid out by their union.
- Clearly articulate the role and responsibilities of your TA, set and identify areas where you would need to provide supervision and/or support throughout the term.
- Make sure your TA has the necessary skills to be able to do their job. If your TA needs additional training, connect with the TA Training Coordinator in your department and inquire about existing TA training or refer them to training that is offered for TAs at the CTLT. If training specific to the role and responsibilities of your TA isn’t available, put some time aside to meet with your TA and offer one-on-one training about the tasks they need to take on in your course.
Go further
- CUPE 2278 Quick Guide to Collective Agreement for Teaching Assistants (DOCX)
- Faculty-TA Agreement Template (DOCX). Developed by Shaya Golparian and Judy Chan in consultation with CUPE 2278.
- Green, L. (2019). Working with teaching assistants. In J. Newton, J. Ginsburg, J. Rehner, P. Rogers, S. Sbrizzi & J. Spencer (Eds.), Voices from the classroom (pp. 157-158). University of Toronto Press.
- Annual CTLT workshop for UBC Instructors on Faculty-TA Relationship, taking place in August as part of the Summer Institute. View past event.
Faculty story
Anka Lekhi, Associate Professor of Teaching ,
Department of Chemistry
“My Teaching Assistant, Daniel, played a pivotal role in enhancing the first-year Chemistry course for Vantage students. He was responsible for running the tutorials and provided me with valuable feedback on the students’ difficulties and common questions. This insight allowed me to create targeted in-class worksheets that significantly improved the learning experience.
Daniel also expressed an interest in guest lecturing on a topic related to his research, to which I readily agreed. His lecture featured visually appealing slides that seamlessly connected current research with the fundamental principles we were covering in class. Additionally, he used online tools to engage learners, which I was not familiar with at the time. With his permission, I continued to use Daniel’s slides in subsequent years, benefiting future cohorts of students. Moreover, I have since incorporated the online tools into all my classes.”
