Glenn's Guidelines for Teaching Assistants

Overview: Teaching assistants play a crucial role in the delivery of my Statistics (80275) and Experimental Psych (80301) classes. Note that I take these classes more than a little seriously. As a TA for one of these classes, you have an opportunity to really help students (often frightened) to navigate the waters of the two classes in psychology that have an eternal quality to them.� While the abilities to conduct statistical analyses to design and implement solid research are difficult to develop, they are among the most important abilities that students can possibly acquire during their time here. You, as the TA, have a major role in facilitating that educational experience for these students.

WHAT I EXPECT OF MY TA's:

Minimal Requirements:

I believe that my minimal requirements represent high standards. You have been awarded a competitive assistantship, you can meet and hopefully exceed these standards. Essentially, I want my TA's work and outlook on the educational experience to match my no-holds-barred, full-throttle delivery of my courses. Here are some specific criteria that comprise my minimal requirements:

A. Use the time in the classroom well. Under some conditions, I may co-teach with you in the classroom under others, you'll be there solo. In any case, use all the time allocated to you. It is rarely the case that you can fully address a complex topic sufficiently in a small amount of time. I don't like to hear that a TA is consistently letting students out early. Don't let that be you. The time you have allocated for teaching is so precious  use it all see it as a gift.

B. Hand back students' work at subsequent meetings. As a rule, I will always hand students' work back at the following class period. Students like that, students benefit from that, and students are best able to capitalize on your comments if you follow this simple rule. As a TA, this rule generally means that you have a week to hand back work. I believe that a week is a reasonable amount of time - as such, I require that you hand back work in this timeframe. I don't want to hear from students that you're not handing work back within these parameters.

C. Submit all grades to me in an SPSS .sav file prior to the final examination for the particular class. I often will complete grades for a class immediately after the final examination and get on to other things. I essentially reserve the right to do that. Typically, the .sav file will be one that we will have created together to be on the same page.

D. Check email daily and be responsive. Often things come up that require relatively fast action. Fortunately, email allows such issue to be addressed in a timely manner. I expect you to check your email daily, and I expect a response to an email from me within a day or two (at the most) in most cases. Further, students' emails to you should be treated with these same criteria.

D2. Ditto for voicemail.

E. Do not exploit the work of other TAs. In some cases, you will be required to create lectures to help students learn information. The experience of creating such lectures on your own is beneficial to you in terms of learning about teaching. Further, having lectures that you create yourself benefits students - you will be much better able to explain ideas that you worked out yourself. In some cases in the past, TAs have 'borrowed' notes from other TAs of mine and simply 'taught' from those borrowed notes. Simply: I do not want you to do that.

F. KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TEACHING ABOUT PRIOR TO THE DAY OF A CLASS.

In some cases, I have heard complaints that a given TA had not thought about the material for a particular class prior to the day that the class was scheduled. I want you to not only be prepared ahead of time, I want you to be OVERPREPARED ahead of time.

G. FOR MY STATS CLASSES: Please ensure that you are using the same symbols as I use. The symbols I use are identical with those presented in Aron and Aron's textbook WITH THE EXCEPTION of the symbols I use for the repeated-measures (dependent-samples) t-test. Please make CERTAIN that you see me for my way of presenting this t-test prior to your teaching it yourself. In addition to alternative symbols, the order of columns that I use differs from that used in the textbook. See me to be on the same page regarding that issue.

H. ALSO FOR MY STAT CLASSES: Note that I teach ANOVA in the format given in Chapter 12 of the textbook. Make sure that you use this same format and make sure to check with me prior to teaching it so as to ensure we are on the same page.

Beyond Minimal Requirements

Frankly, I am of the opinion that if you meet my minimal requirements, you are doing a great job. Anything beyond these requirements will likely be quite noticeable and will land you in the category of TA greatness (yeah, I've had two or three students qualify for that status - you could be next!).