Duties of the mentor

The mentor will design an appropriate program of responsibilities for the rookie to allow the rookie to experience as many aspects of teaching as possible within the alloted time. The mentor will also communicate with the rookie regarding teaching philosophy and approach to planning a course and interacting with the students.

Some suggestions for ways these goals can be accomplished appear below.

Grading:

The rookie should do enough grading to become familiar with the procedure and to be reasonably accurate and fair. Past experience indicates that new TAs have grading standards ranging from the extremely lenient (giving near full credit for poor work with the correct answer) to the extremely strict (essentially no partial credit at all). Faculty mentors are advised to closely supervise or review the rookies' first few grading attempts. I would recommend that rookies grade some homework or quizzes even if you also have an undergraduate grader. I have included some words of advice in the ``Duties of the rookie'' section below, but your own instructions take precedence!

Office hours:

The rookie should hold some office hours or have other opportunities for tutoring undergraduates in a one-on-one setting. The location may be in their office or in the MLRC.

Test/Quiz Questions:

The rookie should write sample examination questions for the professor to consider for inclusion on tests or quizzes. The faculty mentor should supervise the content, wording, level of difficulty, etc.

Class Attendance:

The mentor will decide how often the rookie will attend class. For many courses, daily attendance by the rookie is preferable, but other models are possible. For example, the mentor might ask that the rookie attend class every day for the first two weeks to become known by the students, and then to attend twice weekly thereafter.

Lecturing:

The mentor will design some opportunities for the rookie to gain experience in front of the classroom, from answering homework questions to conducting review sessions before tests to giving their own lecture, if appropriate. The mentor should assign lecture topics, help the rookie to plan the lecture or review session, etc., and give feedback afterwards. The questions in the Classroom Observations section at the end of this report may be helpful in giving feedback. It is probably not appropriate for the rookie to lecture when the faculty member is unable to attend until after the rookie has lectured successfully with the faculty member in attendance.

Feedback:

The mentor may wish to obtain feedback periodically during the semester from the students about the rookie's performance, and may share any helpful information with the rookie. The mentor may also ask the rookie for self-evaluation when appropriate.

Final Report:

The mentor will report to the mentorship coordinator or to the associate head as to whether or not the rookie has satisfactorily completed the duties that were requested of him/her. The rookie should be aware that assignment as a TA is not guaranteed if the mentorship duties are not completed in a satisfactory manner.