25 Ensuring a positive TA experience
How can you ensure that the course is a positive learning experience for TAs?
ES: Be kind and empathetic! TAs/markers are often in courses while TAing, and are dealing with a very heavy load of work. It is important to take that into account.
Offer your TAs anonymous avenues to discuss issues they may have with their working situation that are anonymous. Make sure they have the contact information for that year’s TA resource and/or CUPE stewards.
EG: One thing I really missed during remote teaching: the ten minutes or so before lecture to connect both with students and, crucially, with TAs. Building shared time into the hours of work is crucial for building community. I also had my senior TA participate in a Teams channel with TAs but without me, where they discussed course related things, exchanged advice on marking, etc.
I had an early conversation with TAs about the complexities of commiserating over marking woes: this is inevitable, and even really valuable under the stress of the job—I think our group found a lot of community and had a lot of fun in our group marking sessions. But we should always be alert to student confidentiality, privacy, and respect.