Your Role as a GTA

As a Graduate Teaching Assistant, you bridge the gap between professors and students, enhancing the learning experience. Understand your responsibilities, build effective relationships, and engage with students to create a supportive and productive classroom environment.

Discussion leaders, lab assistants, lecture assistants, and other GTAs who work under a professor’s guidelines, while also relaying material to students, find themselves in a unique position. Learning how to navigate this role can help you be more effective and create a positive experience for everyone in this learning and teaching environment.

Student Expectations of a GTA

Understanding what role your students expect you to fill can help you feel more at ease, as you can be confident that you are meeting their expectations. Undergraduate students see GTAs as adding value to course instruction by:

  • Demonstrating high-quality thinking
  • Being approachable
  • Sharing experiences
  • Sharing personal insights
  • Demonstrating professionalism and intellectual ethics
  • Providing a global view

This idea is discussed more in the section below, “Working with Your Students.”

Understanding Relationships

As a GTA, you usually work with another instructor (most often a professor) and students. Less frequently, GTAs find themselves working directly with students as a course’s instructor-of-record. In these cases, you are usually supervised by a professor within the department, but students do not interact with this supervisor unless you need support in a difficult matter (like a case of plagiarism, for example). 

Communicating with the Professor

If you are a discussion leader alongside a large lecture, a lab teaching assistant, or in another position where you work directly under a professor's supervision, your relationship with the professor can vary. The professor may or may not explicitly set guidelines for your section, and both situations can be either problematic or productive.

Because you interact closely with students and their work, you have access to information about the course and students that the professor might not. You might learn about:

  • Concepts covered in lecture that are still confusing to students or need more review
  • Exam questions or sections on which many students did poorly
  • Challenges students are frequently having in their written work
  • Certain students who are causing problems, consistently not attending class, or frequently complaining about grades

When you discover this information, you should bring it to the attention of the professor. Ensuring the instructor has information about student learning and performance is part of your responsibility as a GTA.

The amount of guidance that professors offer to their teaching assistants varies, but there are many ways that professors can make your life easier if they are willing. You should not hesitate to ask for any of the following, even if they are not offered:

  • Outlines or other information about content the professor would like covered in your class sections
  • Clarification about attendance or late work policies, and support in enforcing them
  • Meetings with you about the material to be covered
  • Meetings with you to go over an exam, a paper, or other major assignments, and their expectations and grading policy
  • Examples of graded exams, papers, or other assignments to better understand expectations and grading policies

No matter your personal feelings about the professor or their teaching, you must always keep your public relationship with them professional. It is important to maintain a “united front.” You should not criticize the professor in front of your students, even if they are complaining, and you should not question the professor's abilities as a scholar or a teacher. You may use your class as a time to present alternate viewpoints or additional information, but you are also responsible for helping the students understand the material the professor presents in class, so you must not simply dismiss it. For example, if you disagree with the professor’s point of view or theoretical orientation:

DON’T: “You don’t need to worry about what the professor was saying in lecture yesterday. That theory is outdated, but he still believes it, so I’ll have to fill you in on more recent scholarship.”

DO: “There are many schools of thought and theories surrounding this question. Yesterday, you learned about one of those and I want to make sure you understand its strengths and weaknesses. After that, I can introduce some alternative interpretations if you’re interested.”

Much of the content in this section is adapted from Curzan, A. & Damour, L. (2011). First Day to Final Grade: A Graduate Student’s Guide to Teaching. University of Michigan Press ELT.

Working with Your Students

Students tend to be more engaged in their coursework if they believe someone cares about their performance. Your interactions with your students can greatly improve student performance and satisfaction. At a large university like KU, students can become overwhelmed or feel lost by the sheer size of the institution. As a GTA, you will usually work with a smaller group of students, such as in a discussion section or lab. You are therefore an important contact point for students, and you can make the community feel smaller and more welcoming. By connecting with students, you build rapport and help them be more engaged and willing to rise to the challenge of difficult concepts. Overall, this makes students successful and makes you a better instructor.

Building these connections might feel challenging at first. Some basic steps you can take include:

  • Share information about yourself, such as your background, research interests, and why you like this field of study, what you enjoy about teaching this course, etc.
  • Learn student names
  • Collect information about students, such as their year in college, their reason for taking the course, their major, etc. You can collect this info on index cards, through a Canvas survey, or via another method depending on your course
  • Move throughout the classroom, rather than standing at the front the whole time
  • Create time before and after class to chat with students informally
  • Be available and welcoming during your office hours
  • Ask students for feedback about what is or isn’t working in the course, and be receptive to what they say

You can set yourself up for a positive classroom environment and good working relationships with students by preparing beforehand and setting a positive tone during the first couple of weeks.

References:

  • Meyers, S. A. (2009). Do Your Students Care Whether You Care About Them? College Teaching, 57(4), 205-210.
  • Umbach, P. D., & Wawrzynski, M. R. (2005). Faculty Do Matter: The Role of College Faculty in Student Learning and Engagement. Research in Higher Education, 46(2), 153-184.
  • Witt, P. L., Wheeless, L. R., & Allen, M. (2004). A Meta-Analytical Review of the Relationship Between Teacher Immediacy and Student Learning. Communication Monographs, 71(2), 184-207.

Being Confident in Your Role as an Instructor

Being prepared can help you feel more confident as your course starts. Consider the practical, emotional, and intellectual challenges that you may face during the first weeks of the semester. Preparation does not only mean being confident in your content knowledge but also considering possible difficulties. Other sections here can assist you in feeling in control of your time and ready to handle any classroom situation. Here are some things you might consider in advance:

Think about your identity as an instructor. If you need a place to start, think about effective instructors you have learned from. What behaviors or characteristics could you emulate? What are your sense of humor and personality like? How can you use these to keep students engaged? Even if this is your first time teaching, you have ample experience as a student to help you know what makes for good teaching.

Remember that students don’t expect you to do or know everything perfectly. You can ask your students about their own expectations regarding respectful behavior. This helps students feel like you value them and makes them more invested as a group. Encourage them to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to not know the answer. You can tell students you will find out the information for them or model how to look for the answer. Be realistic about how much you can cover, keeping in mind that you may have to clarify concepts and answer questions as you go.