<p>Alexandre, I understand you were discussing classes, but credit hours taught are an important measure for teaching. As you pointed out, the item “Faculty and GSI” means a professor teaches the large class and the TAs lead the smaller discussion sections. This particular item can be misleading. Here’s a simple example: Suppose a 4-credit hour course, is taught by a prof and there are 10 sections led by 10 different TAs. In this case, by “Faculty and GSI” count, this is counted as one class under “Faculty and GSI.” Does it truly reflect the teaching efforts of ten TAs? I don’t think so. If you consider credit hours taught, TA’s teaching is counted as 40 (4x10) credit hours, which I think is more reflective of what these graduate students have done. </p>
<p>Furthermore, for the “Faculty and GSI” case, the question is who is the real teacher to the students. Students in big classes rarely go see the faculty when they have questions; it is the TAs from whom most students learn the course material through discussion, practice questions, etc. </p>
<p>I never said that we need to compare teaching at Northwestern and Michigan in terms of credit hours taught by profs and TAs. I simply pointed out the importance of credit hours taught for teaching evaluation.</p>
<p>You said “I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that TAs are teaching more at Michigan now than they were 5 years ago.” As I said earlier, this is based on my personal observation. I am in academics and often visit Michigan. Again, based on my personal observation and conversation with my colleagues at Michigan, I see a fewer and fewer number of faculty who really care about educating their undergraduate students. But, this trend is not just at Michigan, but also at many large universities. </p>
<p>As a side note, while I am here, I would like to point out that I am not saying that teaching by graduate students are inferior to teaching by professors. There are many (native and non-native speakers) graduate students who are excellent teachers and there are many (native and non-native speakers) professors who are pretty bad teachers.</p>