Be reasonable in your expectations of students. They are (usually) taking other courses and have responsibilities beyond their school work. Students should spend hours per week on each course, and this includes in-class time. Be available to students for help, particularly at crucial ‘crunch’ times before assignment due dates and test dates. I thought that the material I found on the web didn’t need to be referenced because it is in the public domain, not actually in a book. Let your students know that ALL ideas and information that they incorporate into their work should be referenced, even something that someone told them about (referenced as a “personal communication” from that person). Warn them that some material on the web might not be as accurate or reliable as that found in books and scholarly journals because much of it has not been subjected to peer review. Teach them proper citation practice for information from all sources, including web sources. Your liaison librarian can help with this if you are unsure about it yourself. Being a TA in Online Courses Many of the same principles of effective teaching in a traditional university classroom that were introduced in earlier sections of the manual also apply to online teaching. One of the obvious differences between online and traditional teaching is the lack of a physical classroom. At the University of Waterloo, a virtual classroom site is created for all fully online courses in our learning management system, . Students may work with the course content, communicate with each other and the instructor, submit assignments and take quizzes all through this online space. Being a teaching assistant for a fully online course may be challenging at first because you may never meet students face to face. Communication is often asynchronous and so you do not have an opportunity to read facial expression or body language. Are the students working through the material? Are they having problems? You may feel that the lack of a physical connection with the students at a pre-determined time and place each week may prevent you from answering these questions. Rest assured that these challenges can be addressed. Many uWaterloo instructors and teaching assistants find that teaching online is a highly rewarding experience and they can even feel more connected to their students than in a physical environment.
Be reasonable in your expectations of students. They are (usually) taking other courses and have responsibilities beyond their school work. Students should spend hours per week on each course, and this includes in-class time. Be available to students for help, particularly at crucial ‘crunch’ times before assignment due dates and test dates. I thought that the material I found on the web didn’t need to be referenced because it is in the public domain, not actually in a book. Let your students know that ALL ideas and information that they incorporate into their work should be referenced, even something that someone told them about (referenced as a “personal communication” from that person). Warn them that some material on the web might not be as accurate or reliable as that found in books and scholarly journals because much of it has not been subjected to peer review. Teach them proper citation practice for information from all sources, including web sources. Your liaison librarian can help with this if you are unsure about it yourself. Being a TA in Online Courses Many of the same principles of effective teaching in a traditional university classroom that were introduced in earlier sections of the manual also apply to online teaching. One of the obvious differences between online and traditional teaching is the lack of a physical classroom. At the University of Waterloo, a virtual classroom site is created for all fully online courses in our learning management system, . Students may work with the course content, communicate with each other and the instructor, submit assignments and take quizzes all through this online space. Being a teaching assistant for a fully online course may be challenging at first because you may never meet students face to face. Communication is often asynchronous and so you do not have an opportunity to read facial expression or body language. Are the students working through the material? Are they having problems? You may feel that the lack of a physical connection with the students at a pre-determined time and place each week may prevent you from answering these questions. Rest assured that these challenges can be addressed. Many uWaterloo instructors and teaching assistants find that teaching online is a highly rewarding experience and they can even feel more connected to their students than in a physical environment.
TA%20manual%20-final-%20March%207.docx