What to Ask the Instructor

When you get an assignment as a TA or reader, the first thing to do is get in touch with the instructor of the course. You will need to find out what the instructor expects you to do, make sure there aren't any insurmountable scheduling conflicts, and begin to prepare for your teaching assignment.

In advance — There are some things you can find out by yourself in advance:

• When and where does the class meet?
  
• When and where do the discussion and lab sections meet? Check these using the on-line schedule of classes (http://websoc.reg.uci.edu); times and rooms often change, and sometimes as late as the first week of classes.
• Do the lectures or sections conflict with your own classes or other obligations? You may need to make adjustments once you know what your TA duties involve.
  
• How has this instructor (or other instructors) organized this course in the past? Most instructors' home pages have links to syllabi (and sometimes other materials) for the courses they teach. A few minutes spent looking at these will give you a good outline of the course's organization (though of course things may change from one quarter to the next).
  

Asking the instructor — The questions listed here apply to a broad range of courses and go into some detail. You shouldn't expect the instructor to provide absolute, definitive answers to all of these questions. It's impossible to predict every task that may need doing during the quarter, and it's important to be flexible as the needs of the class become clearer over time. Instructors may prefer to let you resolve some of these issues yourself, or in consultation with other TAs or readers for the course. Nonetheless, the sooner you get answers to any of these questions, the better you can plan and prepare and the better you can balance your teaching responsibilities with your other obligations.

• Attending lecture: Do you prefer or require that I attend the lectures? Will you need me to help set up equipment or demonstrations for the lectures?
  
  
• Discussion and lab sections
  
  • Which section meeting(s) will I be expected to lead (if this hasn't already been specified)?
    
  • If there are section meetings on the schedule before the first lecture, do you want me to hold section meetings then?
    
  • What do you want students to get out of the section meetings? Is there new material I should cover; should I give them advice on the assignments; should I answer questions and give them practice with the course topics?
    
  • How much guidance on the assignments should I give students in section or individually? How far should I go in leading them towards a solution?
    
  • Shall I take attendance at section meetings? Does attendance count towards a student's grade?
    
    
• Student enrollment: Will you need me to take any role in processing requests of students to add or drop the course (or specific sections)?
  
  
• Office hours and student communication
  
  • How many office hours per week would you suggest I schedule?
    
  • Will we have a course mailing list (e.g., through EEE or Canvas) for sending messages to the class?
    
  • Will we have a mail alias for students that will deliver messages to the instructor and all the TAs?
    
  • Will we have a course newsgroup or EEE MessageBoard or Piazza group?
    
  • What would you like my role to be with these communications channels?
    
  • Would you like me to schedule review sessions for the midterm or final exam?
    
    
• Grading assignments
  
  • Which assignments will I be grading? Will there be a prepared answer key? What rubric or grading standards should I use; what should I particularly look for in the solutions? What grading scale should I use (letter grades, 0 to 5, 0 to 100, ...)?
    
  • How will students submit their work (on paper, via Checkmate, via dropbox on EEE or Canvas or Gradescope)?
    
  • Who will keep the official record of scores? Shall I use the EEE or Canvas GradeBook?
    
  • How do you want me to handle cases that look like cheating? Will we be using automated plagiarism detection (see http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/checker.html)?
    
  • How and when will graded assignments be returned to students (in section, electronically)? How quickly do you expect me to grade and return the assignments?
  
  
• Preparing materials
  
  • Do you need me to prepare assignments, proofread assignments in advance, develop test cases, or set up infrastructure for the assignments?
    
  • Will you want me to suggest exam questions, proofread exams in advance, or prepare exam keys?
    
  • If you will need me to make photocopies, or in case I would like to make copies of materials for my section, what is the photocopier access code for the class?
    
  • Is there a web page for the course? What role will I have in creating or maintaining it?
    
  • How can I get copies of the syllabus and any other materials you distribute (on paper or electronically)?
    
  • Do you have a desk copy of the textbook I can use? (Check also with the ICS Instructional Support Manager, Lumen Hwang; she may have copies of texts to check out.)
    
    
• Exams
  
  • When are the exams scheduled?
    
  • Do you prefer or require that I be present to help proctor the exams? If so, how much help should I give students who ask questions during the exam?
    
  • Who will grade the exams, and when?
  
  
• Records and grades
  
  • Who will maintain the official records of students' scores on assignments, exams, and other items?
    
  • How should I address questions from students who want to know how well they're doing in the class or what their probable grade will be?
    
  • Will you expect me to participate in calculating the final grades? In what ways? At the end of the quarter, by what date do you expect that I will be finished with my teaching duties?
    
    
• Travel schedule
  
  • Do you plan to be out of town during the quarter? If so, is there something special I should do in your absence? (TAs may also have conferences to attend or qualifying exams to take. If those plans will conflict with scheduled sections or grading expectations, the TA must make sure the instructor knows about these plans and approves of any alternative arrangements. It's not okay just to ask your office mate to cover your section.)
    
    
• Meeting time
  • Can we set up a weekly time to meet briefly to discuss how the course is going?
    

More information — Consult these resources for further information:

• UCI's Electronic Educational Environment (EEE or E3, http://eee.uci.edu) provides up-to-date course rosters, automatically maintained class mailing lists, an on-line gradebook, mid-quarter course evaluations, course discussion groups, and more. To authorize a TA to use these features, an instructor must log on to eee.uci.edu with his or her UCInet ID and use the Assistant Editor feature. The campus is migrating from the locally developed EEE to the commercial product Canvas. More information is available on line.
  
  
• A wide variety of general teaching issues are addressed on the web site of UCI's Center for Engaged Instruction (CEI, http://cei.uci.edu/). The CEI also provides free videotaping and confidential consultation on teaching quality and teaching techniques.


• The ICS Student Affairs Office can answer questions about degree requirements, prerequisites, enrollment policies, and other aspects of the undergraduate program.
  
  
• Other students who have been TAs or readers for the same course in the past can serve as a valuable informal source of information and advice.


• If you have a student with difficulties that are beyond your expertise to address, you may wish to refer the student to the Learning and Academic Resource Center (LARC, http://www.larc.uci.edu, for tutorial assistance, study skills, writing, and time management issues), the UCI Disability Services Center (http://www.disability.uci.edu, for students with learning and other disabilities), or the UCI Counseling Center (http://www.counseling.uci.edu, for the broad range of personal problems).


• You may wish to check out a TA Guide for ICS 31/32/33 (http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/taguide.html), which is one example of an instructor's attempt to answer some of these questions.
  
  
• The ICS TA Advisor, David G. Kay, is available by Email (kay@uci.edu) and in 5056 DBH for advice on these and other teaching-related issues.