Expectations for TAs

From GradBook

This article is part of the series EECS TA Guide

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The Expectations for TAs are clear. TAs are expected to assist professors in teaching their subjects and should spend on the order of 25 hours per week on their teaching duties. Depending on the subject, this may involve:

• Teaching recitations and/or tutorials,
• Holding office hours,
• Making problem sets and their solutions,
• Running laboratory sessions,
• Holding exam review sessions and proctoring exams,
• Grading problem sets, labs, and/or exams
• Maintaing the subject website.

In most of the larger, core undergraduate subjects, the responsibility of teaching recitations is delegated to other professors, that of grading problem sets to graders, and that of running labs to lab assistants. In smaller, graduate-level subjects, TAs tend to take on more roles, though each takes less time.

TAs are generally not expected to do any of the following:

• Making lecture notes (professor's job),
• Teach lecture when the professor cannot,
• Tutor individual students.
• The professor for the subject is responsible for providing TAs with all the relevant textbooks and course materials free of charge.