Resources
for Teaching Assistants Print Resources
Below is a list of articles on teaching and learning; you may find them helpful in thinking about, planning for, and fulfilling your TA assignment. Please contact the Center if you would like copies of any of these articles. We can provide the set of articles annotated below as a TA reading packet, or we can send copies of individual articles. If these articles raise specific questions or issues you would like to explore in more depth, we can provide you with bibliographies on any teaching topic or issue you select.
- McKeachie, Wilbert J. Chapter 23: "The Teaching Assistantship: A Preparation for Multiple Roles", Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co., 1994. 239-49.
Great article for new or experienced TAs. Explains the multiple responsibilities of TAs and the skills needed to accomplish them effectively; common TA concerns and ways to address them; the benefits of a TAship, and strategies to maximize those benefits. Also discusses how to create a team relationship between professors and TAs.
- Andrews, J.D.W. "Why TA Training Needs Instructional Innovation", Strengthening the Teaching Assistant Faculty: New Directions for Teaching and Learning. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, no. 22, 1985. 47-62.
- Frederick, Peter. "The Dreaded Discussion: Ten Ways to Start", Improving College and University Teaching. Washington, D.C.: Heldref Publications, no. 3, 1980, 109-14
- Instructional Development Services. "Alternative Classroom Formats", Teaching Guide for New and Experienced TAs, University of California- Irvine, 1994.
- Searle Center for Teaching Excellence. "Laboratory TAs: Some Practical and Theoretical Considerations." Northwestern University, 1997.
- Arons, Arnold. "'Critical Thinking' and the Baccalaureate Curriculum." Liberal Education 71.2 (1985): 141-157.
- Hatch, Deborah H. and Christine R. Farris. "Helping TAs Use Active Learning Strategies." Teaching Assistant Training in the 1990's, New Directions for Teaching and Learning 39 (1990): 89-97.
- Bruffee, Kenneth. "Consensus Groups: A Basic Model of Classroom Collaboration." Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993. 28-51.
- Hodges, Elizabeth. "Negotiating the Margins: Some Principles for Responding to Our Students' Writing, Some Strategies for Helping Students Read Our Comments." Writing to Learn: New Directions for Teaching and Learning 69 (Spring 1997): 77-89.
- Treisman, Uri. "Studying Students Studying Calculus: A Look at the Lives of Minority Mathematics Students in College." The College Mathematical Journal 23.5 (1992): 362-372.
This article provides classroom exercises
and teaching techniques designed to foster an active learning
environment. Topics include: drawing out student questions,
setting a class agenda, and offering objective-based review
sessions. In general, the article shows how to develop active
student participation in the classroom without creating an unstructured,
free-for-all discussion.
Frederick offers a list of "assumptions and
principles" for discussion sessions. He elaborates on these
principles by suggesting ten specific and practice-oriented techniques
for engaging students in discussions. An extremely popular and
widely-reproduced essay, this piece is a must for TAs who lead
discussion groups.
Thirteen classroom formats or activities,
all alternatives to the standard lecture or classroom discussion, are
discussed in detail. This helpful guide explains how and why you
might consider adopting these alternative formats in your
classes. In addition, it outlines the new roles that the
instructor or TA must take on based on these changes.
This article, produced by the Center for
laboratory TAs, gives suggestions on how to prepare for a lab. It
details some methods for assuring that the students get the most out of
the laboratory exercise, and explains what to look for and do while the
lab is in progress. A good starting place or refresher piece for TAs
who have lab responsibilities.
Arons, a physicist, offers a fairly
comprehensive overview of the term 'critical thinking,' a skill which
many of us want to inculcate in our students, but may have trouble
defining precisely. Arons sets out a list of intellectual and
reasoning abilities which constitute the capacity for critical thinking
in a higher education setting. He spells out the implications of
his definitions for some fundamental teaching tasks, such as testing
and ascertaining student difficulties in the classroom.
This article emphasizes the role that
teaching assistants can play in helping students effectively and
meaningfully engage with the course. It demonstrates some
practical ways that TAs move beyond the approach of simply entering
their sections and asking for questions or struggling to solicit
responses with a painfully silent discussion section. It
discusses such strategies as using writing in the classroom and
small-group discussions.
Bruffee proposes a complex and
theoretically-informed model for engineering student small-group work
in the classroom. He argues convincingly for the effectiveness of
this kind of model for increasing student learning and teaching our
students some important lessons about the nature and construction of
knowledge.
If you teach writing, you should be aware of
Hodges' study. She taped and analyzed the oral explanations of
teachers who were writing comments on their students' papers, and then
did the same for the students as they first read and digested those
comments. The disparaties between what the teachers intended the
students to understood and what the students actually understood are
striking and telling. She concludes the article with some basic
principles for responding effectively to student writing in a way that
helps our students understand our reactions to their work and
learn from them.
Treisman conducted a study of minority students in calculus classes, and tried to understand why they did not perform as well as their colleagues. His answers are arresting, and focus upon the study patterns and habits of the minority students, who worked in isolation from their peers. Treisman explains how he transformed those habits at his university, and drastically increased the success rates of the minority students in calculus classes. The conclusions of the article have broad applications for anyone who teaches traditionally under-represented minority groups.
The Center is in the process of putting together a set of
reading packets for TAs interested in looking more deeply at particular
teaching issues. Call the Center and we can provide you with
prepared sets of essays on the following topics:
- Initiating and Leading Class room Discussions (Coming Soon)
- Teaching and Evaluating Writing (Coming Soon)
- Conducting and Evaluating Science and Engineering Labs (Coming Soon)
- Grading Problem Sets (Coming Soon)
- TA and Professor: Effective Collaboration (Coming Soon)
The Center provides individual consulting to teaching assistants in both electronic and personal formats. If you are looking for quick advice or information, send your question or problem to our email consulting center at the Center
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Material developed by Jim Lang