<p>Bear in mind that some “LACs” are really small universities with small-scale grad programs. My psychology labs at Bryn Mawr were taught, and graded, by grad student TAs. They also taught and graded required drill sections in Romance languages.</p>
<p>S1 is a “junior tutor” at his school. He’s a sophomore. This involves being available several hours/wk. to help first-year Calc students with problem sets or explaining what was taught in lecture. He also grades weekly problem sets but not exams. He is required to attend all class lectures, so it essentially adds an additional course to his schedule.</p>
<p>He applied after first year. Was required to have excellent grades in a higher-level calc sequence (he had just finished Analysis at that point) and a teacher recommendation. Chicago has Inquiry-Based Learning sections of some math classes, where the student teach each other and derive proofs from scratch rather than leaning math by lecture.<br>
He was also a TA for AP Comp Sci AB and taught USACO competition-level problems while in HS and plans to teach in the future.</p>
<p>I was a TA when I was a sophomore in college for sociology (one course, which I had taken and excelled in just previously). I spent a lot of time & energy coaching kids (many of whom were older than I). I was not paid and did not give grades but did provide feedback on assignments that students did & turned in to me. I led discussion groups and helped the students get a better understanding of concepts covered in lecture. They could also meet with the instructors during office hours. I did not have office hours, received no pay and no credit but found it an interesting experience (later majored in sociology).</p>
<p>Both my Ds have been hired as TAs.</p>
<p>D1 TAed at our state flagship. Initially she merely led recitation sections for the intro physics class (homework and exam review, homework and exam grading, she also suggested exam problems to the prof teaching the class); however, she was tapped her senior year to replace a grad student who abruptly quit during the semester. D was taking some graduate classes at the time and was treated much the same way as the grad students were. For the acoustics class, she lectured, ran the labs and wrote the exams and graded. This semester, she is TAing PChem. The prof lectures 2X a week on the topical material, D delivers the third weekly lecture (to over 200 kids!) on methodology for problem solving. D also assigns and grades all the homework sets (the prof never even looks at them except in cases of plagarism/cheating), helps to write the exams and grades them.</p>
<p>D1 had gotten a B in the Intro Physics class, but her upper level coursework was excellent so she was forgiven the B. She had never had acoustics, (it’s was a class for non-physics majors) so she was probably hired because she had been a conscientious teacher for the Intro class. She was hired for PChem because she aced it with highest grade in the class the previous semester. Normally the PChem TA is a grad student, but D1’s situation is bit different. She completed her BS in physics, but returned to the Uni as an undergrad to complete her pre-med requirements and finished her BS in math so she’s being treated as a grad student.</p>
<p>D2 started TAing her freshman year at her private R1 U. She led recitations (homework and exam review & grading) for Calculus 2. Now a sophomore, she’s a workshop leader for linear analysis. She specifically does not do homework in her workshop, but leads discussions and prods students into thinking about original proofs and methods. She also does exam review and exam grading. (But not homework grading-- a grader does that.) As a first year workshop leader, D2 is also taking a required course in educational methodology.</p>
<p>D2 asked to TA Calc. She started college with 2 years of college level math completed. (Through linear analysis). She also got A’s in her first semester of upper level math at her U. Normally freshman are not even considered for TA positions.</p>
<p>Our son was an undergrad TA and assisted students in CompSci I and II lab sessions. A grad TA was the lab instructor. He did not grade papers or present course materials.</p>
<p>D’s school uses TAs(undergrads) or TFs(graduate students) for the discussion sections only. So far, only her Intro to Chem class used TAs. Everything else used TFs. She has been very pleased by the availability of both the professors and the TA/TFs for everything from office hours (which the TA/TFs must also have) to responses to questions via email. She was out sick during the second quarter and the TA/TFs emailed her within an hour after every missed class with the missed notes and assignments. She was able to stay current on her work while staying in bed where she belonged.</p>
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That’s a little scary… even if she was a grad student…</p>
<p>Both my kids have been undergraduate TAs, one at a flagship state school, and one at an Ivy League school. My daughter was offered this opportunity to TA because she had the highest grade in the class in the same course the previous semester, and the professor invites a few outstanding students to work as undergraduate TAs each term. She has been working as a TA for this course now for three semesters. My son was offered the opportunity to TA because he was well known to the professor, who was teaching a course in the 3-week winter session for which no graduate TA was available; my son had previously taken the same course with this professor, who knew that he understood the material. In both instances, the undergraduate TAs ran office hours and graded student work, but they did not run discussion sections.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what I think of the practice. For the price families are paying for tuition, it seems inappropriate to have some of the teaching done by undergraduates earning about 8 dollars an hour. But on the other hand, undergraduate TAs speak English, they’re in the job because they want to be, and the students appreciate their help. And it’s a nicer way to earn money than scraping plates in the cafeteria. So maybe the pluses outweigh the minuses.</p>
<p>One of my kids was a TA at a state flagship for two years. As with others, the professors invited top students from the prior year to TA for the class the following year. </p>
<p>Being a TA counted as an independent study course (I don’t remember whether it was one or two credits) and was unpaid. The work involved helping students, grading assignments and tests against a grading sheet provided by the professor, and teaching at least one class under the supervision of the professor. The TAs were expected to attend every class and to maintain high visibility as a resource for the students. </p>
<p>The TAs also met periodically with the Professor and with TAs from other sections of the class to discuss issues that they were encountering. Students could contact any TA for extra help, or appeal any paper graded by TAs to the professor. It was a lot more work that my kid expected, but he found it very rewarding. He also enjoyed getting to know the Professors on a more personal basis. Being on the other side of the classroom gave him a completely different perspective. He mentioned being amazed at how poorly so many of the undergrads wrote, and all of the TAs encountered issues with students who felt entitled to higher grades than they deserved or who had other problems with the school that needed to be addressed. He enjoyed it enough to become a “Head TA” for another class, which involved more problem-solving and coordination. </p>
<p>I think the success of undergrad TAs depends on a combination of many factors: such as the complexity of the subject, the size of the class, how closely the Professor monitors the TAs’ services, and the maturity of the TA. It can be successful, but it can also become a problem if any of those factors are out-of-balance.</p>
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<p>If this story is true it provides two extreme examples academic fraud and of students not getting the education that they were promised and are paying dearly for. I’d love to know the name of this institution, but I have a guess it won’t be provided. I do strongly suspect it’s just another example of CC parental over-the-top blarney (and definitely worthy of a screen save).</p>
<p>Son was TA his sophomore year for inorganic chemistry. His duties were limited to grading tests, helping with lab and helping with study sessions.</p>
<p>I’m sort of a TA for intro CS courses.</p>
<p>I run around telling all the students wrong answers so that they will fail the course and bring the mean down and thus make the school look harder than it actually is. Good times.</p>