As a TA, it is important to manage your time effectively. Your duties will often include activities like holding office hours, answering emails, or preparing lesson plans. These activities are more difficult to schedule than class time and can consume a great deal of your allotted hours of work. Monitor these hours closely by keeping a logbook (such as your TA Log) and, if necessary, adjust your hours of work form with your course instructor to accurately reflect the time you spend on each task. The simple strategies outlined here will help you succeed in effectively managing these activities.

Office Hours

When you complete your Hours of Work form, you will determine, along with your course instructor, whether and how often you will hold office hours. The instructor may determine the time and location of your office hours, or you may decide for yourself.

Once you have determined where and when your office hours will be held, announce them to your class, distribute a handout with your office location and hours, post them with the Department office, and send the hours out to your students by email or on Avenue to Learn, McMaster’s learning management system. You may need to occasionally adjust your hours or agree to meet students by appointment if there are students who cannot attend your scheduled hours due to a course conflict. Remind students of your office hours, especially in the first few weeks when new students may be joining the class. If you need to cancel your office hours, try to provide students with sufficient notice, preferably through email or Avenue to Learn.

Many students, especially in their first year, are not sure what office hours are, or why they might want to attend. Let students know that they do not need to have a problem in order to come to office hours, but may simply want to come to talk one-on-one about an idea or course concept. Remind them that you want to meet with them and that office hours are one of the few opportunities at the university level to have a one-on-one conversation. Also remind them that, if they do have a problem, you are interested in working together to reach a solution.

When a student attends your office hours, greet them warmly and invite them to sit down. Once they are comfortable, ask them what brings them to your office. Listen carefully to their concern or question and respond appropriately. If you do not know an answer to a question, advise the student that you will find out and let them know.

You may notice a sharp increase in office hour attendance immediately before an assignment is due or after grades for an assignment have been returned. Advise students whether your office hours will be extended during these busier periods. If you’re responding to a student at the end of your office hours, use your discretion to decide if you will stay and help (e.g., if it only requires a few additional minutes) or if the student should follow up in an email or during the next office hour. If you significantly or frequently go over your allotted time for office hours make sure you bring this to the attention of your course instructor.

If no students attend office hours, you should still track this time on your Hours of Work form. It’s good practice to work on other TA-related duties (e.g., marking, course reading) during office hours when it’s not busy, so that you’re using this time effectively.

Office hour safety guidelines

Keep your office door open during your office hours. Schedule your office hours in a location with frequent foot traffic, and be sure to set your office hours during university business hours. If you share your office space with other graduate students, you might consider asking them to be present in the office — quietly working in their own space, perhaps using headphones — during meetings.

If you feel uncomfortable during your office hours for any reason, you may politely ask the student to leave. You can then schedule a meeting between you, the student, and the course instructor at a later date. If you feel threatened, call Campus Security at 905-522-4135 or 905-525-9140 x24281, by dialing 88 from a university phone, or by using McMaster’s smartphone app.

holding virtual office hours

Holding office hours online may be a more convenient way for students to connect with you. Virtual office hours can be facilitated through a video conferencing platform. Two platforms that are institutionally supported are Zoom and Microsoft Teams.  Both platforms provide visual and/or chat-based meetings, allow you to screen share during your meetings, and capture live transcripts. Check with your course instructor if they would prefer you use a particular technology.

You may choose to have either drop-in office hours or office hours by appointment. Create the link(s) in advance to share with your class or individual students (e.g., link to personal meeting room in Zoom, send an Outlook invitation with a Microsoft Teams link).

Managing Emails

Emailing students can take a lot of time. To save time and frustration, set an email policy before the term begins. If you are unsure about your policy, check with the course instructor. Advise students of your email policy in the first class and distribute this policy on a handout.

Your email policy might include:

When you will respond to emails: Advise students when you will check the course email (e.g., 9-5 Monday to Friday, or on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and that they can expect a response from that point within two business days.

When you will not respond to emails: You may decide not to respond to emails 24 hours before an assignment is due or 24 hours after a graded assignment is returned in order to avoid last-minute or emotional emails. You must tell your students if this is your policy and remind them well before the assignment is due and when the assignment is handed back.

What kinds of questions you will respond to by email: You may advise students that only “yes or no” questions will be answered by email and that if their question requires a detailed response or discussion, they should come meet with you during your office hours. Or you can include a “five sentence rule,” which states that you will only answer emails that can be responded to in five sentences or less.

A reminder of McMaster’s email policy: McMaster University’s communication policy stipulates that all academic correspondence must originate from a McMaster email account. Advise students that you will not respond to emails that originate from non-McMaster addresses (e.g. student_name@hotmail.com).

Occasionally, students might email you through Avenue to Learn. Be sure to regularly check Avenue to Learn for updates and messages, and consider setting up your Avenue email to forward to your regular McMaster email address (following the steps outlined here) to ensure you never miss a message.

How to communicate via Avenue to Learn: Many courses will be using Avenue to Learn to host online discussion forums related to the course. With the permission of the course instructor, you may want to set up a forum for students to ask questions or for you to post answers to common questions that you have been asked in emails. This will help you reduce the number of emails you must respond to on the same topic and can help redirect questions to their peers instead of you.

How you will protect student privacy: Assure your students that you will protect their privacy by using the “blind carbon copy” (bcc) function for group emails. This function ensures that only you see individual student email addresses.