Welcome to The Teaching Assistant Guide to Teaching and Learning online book!

This book is developed by the Center for Pedagogical Innovation, Brock University, and is designed to be a reference that helps Brock Teaching Assistants, Lab Demonstrators, Marker-Graders, Seminar Leaders, and Course Coordinators in their roles. In this handbook, we use “TA” as an acronym for Teaching Assistant. We often refer to Teaching Assistants, Lab Demonstrators, Marker-Graders, and Seminar Leaders as TAs because their role is to assist in teaching a course in higher education, and it involves engaging students in learning and providing them feedback.

This book will be a resource for TAs in preparing for their seminars, giving meaningful feedback, and engaging learners in accessible and inclusive ways. It can serve as your guide, offering insights, and practical advice to navigate the complexities of teaching and learning in different learning environments.

Please select  “How to Navigate this Book” below to learn about how to find your way in this resource.

How to Navigate this Book

The Table of Contents: Accessing the Parts, Chapters, and Subchapters

In the top left corner of the screen is a black tab labeled “Contents.” Select this to open the Table of Contents dropdown menu. From there, you can navigate to any of the parts, chapters, and subchapters in the book.

By clicking the plus button (+) to the right of a part’s name, you can expand the contents to show each chapter (e.g., major topic) within that part of the book. These headings are clickable and will take you directly to the unit.

If you want to go to a particular subchapter (e.g., subtopic) within the chapter, you can do this by clicking the plus button (+) to the right of the chapter name.

Accessing the Subchapters on the Chapter Pages

Once you’ve navigated to a chapter page, you can use the dropdown menus to access the subchapters. We’ve taken this approach to help keep this information on the chapter page organized and easy to navigate. Click on any of the dropdown menus to open or close the subchapters.

“Next” and “Previous” Page Buttons

At the bottom left or right of this book are the “next” and “previous” buttons. They are labeled with the title of the next section, e.g., “Previous: About this Pressbook–Start Here!” You can use these buttons to go directly to the previous or next unit without navigating back to the Table of Contents.