University of Virginia Teaching Resource Center


*V. Specific TA Concerns*

You and the Undergraduate

Your Multiple Roles

Waiting for chemistry lab.

Students tend to give different identities implicitly to their teachers (Magnan, 1989). As the semester goes on, you need to respond consciously to each of these roles in your own way.

You're the expert, in the classroom because of your knowledge of the subject, your experience, and your wisdom. Students expect expertise but are realistic; if you don't know the answer, just say so, and then find out.
You're the formal authority. In charge, you need to set standards, goals, and deadlines. Learn early that it's much easier to loosen a strict stance than to regain control after losing it. If you're a softie, act tougher than you feel; but don't be draconian or treat college students like high school students. Most of your authority comes through your conduct: for example, if you don't extend deadlines, students quickly learn not to expect exceptions.
You're a socializing agent. For your students, you represent the values, assumptions, and intellectual styles of your discipline. Help them step inside that world.
You're a facilitator. Listen to, question, and challenge your students to facilitate their learning. Some students enter some courses without average or even adequate preparation or skills, but students cannot be categorized as either teachable or unteachable. Excellent teachers teach whatever needs to be taught, whether it be organization, reasoning skills, or responsibility.
You're a role model, even if you don't want to be. Be conscious of the model you want to set, and think about the exemplary teachers who have taught you.
Finally, you're a person. Students expect teachers to be human. You can capitalize on this expectation, inspiring trust, encouraging them to express freely their ideas, opinions, and feelings, and making them more willing to think.

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it.

—Anatole France, The Crime of
Sylvestre Bonnard, pt. II, ch. 4,
Lafcadio Hearn trans., 1881

Your Role as Advisor

Given the nature of the courses you teach, you frequently see students in smaller groups than do faculty members. Thus you can help them mature in ways that go beyond the subject matter:

You can help students take responsibility for their choices: for instance, whether to turn in an assignment on time or to attend class. Know the rules that govern undergraduates' academic lives; consult The Undergraduate Record (available in your department and on-line at http://www.virginia.edu/~regist/ugradrec/) when students ask you to make an exception to a College or School rule (see also Appendix IV). Set clear guidelines about attendance, late assignments, and so on. Some eighteen-year-olds will test your regulations just as they test parental curfews; help them mature by being consistent and fair (see "The First Day of Class").
You can save students time and help them feel like part of your department when they turn to you for general information or advice, academic advising, and consultation about problems. Be willing to listen and know University resources and the courses relating to yours as corollaries or prerequisites (see Appendix II and "Interacting with Students").
You can assist students' social development by encouraging and monitoring their interaction with classmates (see "Teaching a Diverse Student Body" and "Discussion Sections").
You can promote students' intellectual development by challenging them always to think more clearly and critically, by requiring intelligent work for a good grade, and by setting an example of rigorous intellectual inquiry. Think of your students as citizens of this country and of the world: What habits of mind and of inquiry would you like them to have, and how can you help them develop them? (See "Teaching the Whole Student" and " Promoting Students' Intellectual Growth.")
You can demystify the student-instructor relationship and thereby open a door to intellectual exchange. Not an invitation to student-instructor socializing, intellectual openness is rather your willingness to let students see how you explore and extend the boundaries of your discipline to understanding and knowledge. As a graduate student closely involved in studying and learning, you can show your students the excitement of discovery.

Balancing Your Teacher/Student Roles

Although your graduate student experiences can contribute greatly to your TA successes, the two roles can be ironically dichotomous: in one, you give grades, advice, and information; in the other, you receive them. And both roles place important demands on you. Yet your teaching assistantship is vital professional training necessary to a graduate academic degree. If scholarship is attaining and imparting knowledge, then teaching is an essential part of scholarship.
So, although being a graduate TA puts numerous, varied demands on your time and energy (see Appendix III), being professional means sparing your students the consequences of those demands. Balance your life as best you can; when the equilibrium slips, as it inevitably will, avoid blaming one part of your life for lapses in another. Simply apologize for jobs delayed or deadlines missed, remedy the situation as soon as you can and analyze the source of the problem to avoid future conflicts. If you feel consistently overloaded and see no solutions, discuss your predicament with your faculty supervisor or advisor.

Communicating Your Discipline

Teaching the subject matter you are pursuing at the graduate level can present another dichotomy: frequently the difference between the introductory level you're teaching and the advanced level you're studying makes them seem like different subjects: for instance, the basic biology of earthworm anatomy compared to doctoral research on neurobiology. Of course, some people wonder whether we need bridge this gap at all. For them, teaching introductory courses is a trial by fire, a stepping stone to what they consider bigger and better: teaching specialized courses.
In fact, that's not an accurate scenario for intellectual growth, as Sprague and Nyquist explain in their view of intellectual development as a three-stage spiral process (1989, pp. 14-5). They see beginning graduate students at the first level; as novice-level thinkers, they know the basics of the discipline but do not understand all its complexities or use its conventions effectively. For example, a beginning graduate student might know British literature but not much of the critical or literary theory pertaining to it. Somewhat like students in introductory courses, they are still, to some extent, "outsiders" to the discipline learning the basics. So they can make effective teachers, with a good ability to communicate the fundamentals of the discipline.
However, graduate school masterfully socializes these novice thinkers within particular disciplines, making them into "insiders." To succeed, they must refine the precision of their technical vocabulary and highlight narrowly defined research problems. When focusing and refining, it's easy to lose touch with basic principles. At this intermediate level, "insiders" know and use the basics unconsciously, and it's hard to communicate with "outsiders," that is, undergraduate students. Thinkers who stay at this intermediate level of intellectual growth find most teaching difficult because it means working with people who don't know as much as they do.
At the third, advanced stage of intellectual development, however, thinkers appreciate the similarities and differences of other specialties and can explain their discipline to those outside, including elementary and intermediate students. Only at this advanced level of intellectual growth does one attain professional maturity. Truly advanced scholars, those beyond the period of socialization, can translate and connect knowledge in countless ways, working in interdisciplinary settings, and communicating with scholars in disparate fields.
Only after moving beyond the pleasant, socialized, in-crowd level can the critical thinker and scholar- you-explain what you're doing to your friends, spouse, and students. Your teaching can help you move up to that advanced level of intellectual growth. As graduate students and TAs, you have a unique opportunity to view the teaching-learning process from both sides. Turning a dichotomy into a challenge will offer you useful insights into teaching and scholarship.

A crucial part of teaching, I believe, is to allow students to see and feel one's emotional ties to a subject. I believe that it is a useful device to stop every now and then and "witness" for art and literature.

—Jessica Feldman, English