Teaching Assistants and Academic Fellows

There are some unique requirements for Signature Course TAs:

• Must be a currently enrolled graduate student in good academic standing at the time of your appointment.
• Should have or be willing to develop skills in teaching Signature Course component areas: Contemporary Content (required), Writing (required), Oral Communication (required), Interdisciplinary Content (optional), and Information Literacy (optional). 
  • To help develop these skills, all Signature Course TAs (regardless of experience) will be required to attend a pre-semester meeting scheduled the week before classes start.
  • TAs should meet with the professor(s) of their course at least once a week. 
• Signature Course TAs are strongly encouraged to complete a graduate-level pedagogy course prior to or concurrently with serving as a SC TA, as this preparation can enhance teaching effectiveness and support student success. 

All Signature Course TA hiring and appointments must be handled through your faculty member's home department. 

Financial Support for all Signature Course TAs comes from the Signature Course program; Your faculty member's home department will determine your pay rate and their administrative staff will process your appointment. 

Signature Course TA responsibilities may include:

• Attending lectures
• Managing weekly discussion section(s) or lab section(s)
• Attending staff meetings
• Grading course assessments (i.e. exams, essays, quizzes, lab reports, discussion board posts, etc.)
• Holding synchronous office hours

You may review the Faculty/TA Agreement College of Liberal Arts Faculty/TA Agreement draft and CTL Sample Agreement draft to get a sense of other appropriate responsibilities that might become part of your role as a TA. We recommend that you refer to these templates as a way to begin a dialogue to clarify your responsibilities with your supervising professor each semester.

For additional information related to your employment or position as a TA, please consult the Graduate School’s One Stop Shop website.

Our office offers several resources to help you plan and execute successful and engaging discussion sections:

Maintaining open communication with your supervising professor and peers throughout the semester is essential to fostering productive working relationships with your colleagues. Always consider your supervising professor to be your first point of contact whenever you have questions about the course content, schedule, assignments, grading, or your interactions with your students. You may reach out to your supervisor over email, bring up your questions in staff meetings, or request to meet with your professor when you require clarification and/or additional guidance.

• Faculty/TA Agreements
• University Ombuds Department

As you prepare for your first day of class, consider the kind of classroom climate and community you wish to build with your students over the course of the semester. How do you hope students will engage with you and with each other? How can you foster discussions that are respectful but also engaging, challenging, and thought-provoking? Here are a few resources you might consider as you prepare for the beginning of the semester:

• Consider your teaching ethos, or how you hope to successfully teach, mentor, and support your students as they meet the course learning goals.
  • Consulting peers and written reflections on teaching, such as Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, may help you generate ideas about how you wish to engage with your students.
• Course Policy Sheets
  • After consulting your supervisor’s syllabus, consider drafting your own course policy sheet to complement the information provided in the syllabus. Here are some topics or pieces of information you may consider including in this document:
  • Your name, pronouns, email address, and office hours times and locations.
  • Your expectations regarding assignment deadlines, extension requests, and attendance requirements. Be certain these policies are consistent with those of your professor and peer TAs.
  • Your expectations regarding discussion guidelines and classroom behavior. You may use this section as a jumping off point to establishing a “Community Guidelines” document in collaboration with your students.
  • Language which actively and repeatedly encourages students to approach you about course content, assignments, deadlines, and accommodations (especially in relation to disabilities, extenuating personal circumstances, religious holiday observations, etc.)
  • Links to key wellness and academic support resources on campus such as:
    • Disability & Access  
    • UT Counseling and Mental Health Center
    • UT University Health Services
    • The University Writing Center
    • The Sanger Learning Center
• Plan and Facilitate Icebreakers on the First Day to Build Community
  • You may explore example icebreakers and Dr. Stephanie Holmsten’s video on Icebreakers to learn more about the role they play in community building.
  • Consider using icebreakers or check-ins throughout the semester to center student experiences, identities, and concerns.

Grading and assessing student learning is often a key responsibility for TAs. There are many resources and strategies for you to learn about and apply in your own work.

Grading Best Practices and Time Management

• For advice on grading best practices, time management, and navigating grade disputes with students, explore the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching webpage, “Grading Student Work.”
• For information about an efficient way to assess low stakes assessments such as short written reflections or discussion board posts, consult our 5-8-10 Grading Method Video.
• UT Canvas offers trainings and workshops on a variety of topics, including using tools like Speedgrader, Gradescope, and designing rubrics. View their offerings and register for a training here. 

Rubrics and Transparency

• Ask your supervising professor for a rubric to guide you as you grade assessments. In some cases, you may develop a rubric in collaboration with your professor or design a rubric with your professor’s permission.

Academic Integrity

• If you suspect a student of plagiarism or cheating, contact your supervising professor or principal investigator (PI) for directions on how to proceed before contacting the office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity.

You may think of a lesson plan as a script or scaffold that you design before a class period to help you structure your lesson and make the most of your time with your students. A lesson plan may be very involved or may be key bullet points, but it should always:

1. Outline the objective for student learning for the day
2. Include the teaching or learning activities that you will include for the day
3. Include the assessments or check-in strategies you will use to determine whether or not your students are learning the skills or content you had planned to teach them that day. 

For more information, please consult the University of Michigan’s Stiliana Milkova Center for Research on Learning and Teaching’s “Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning” webpage.

Teaching with Technology

• Find ways to engage your students in class with polls (i.e. Instapoll), presentation software (i.e. Prezi), online portfolios or collections (i.e. Padlet, Folio), blogs, Google forms, annotation or visualization tools (i.e. Hypothes.is, Perusall), or Google apps to engage students in diverse, accessible ways.

There are many resources and offices on campus that are available to support you and your students' well-being. 

Campus Resources

[Please Note: The resources listed here pertain mostly to your role as a TA interacting with undergraduate students. The UT Graduate School maintains an excellent guide to mental health and wellness resources available to graduate students, which is accessible here]

Emergencies

• If for any reason you ever feel that you or your students may be immediate danger, call 911. UTPD will respond promptly. If you need the UTPD for a non-emergency, call (512) 471- 4441 ext. 9.

Behavioral Concerns Advice Line (BCAL)

• The Behavior Concerns Advice Line is a service that provides UT Austin’s faculty, students, and staff an opportunity to discuss their concerns about another individual’s behavior. Trained staff members will assist the individual in exploring available options and strategies. They will also provide appropriate guidance and resource referrals to address the particular situation. Depending on the situation, individuals may be referred to resources including but not limited to the Office of the Dean of Students/Student Emergency Services, Counseling and Mental Health Center, and the Employee Assistance Program. An individual can either call the line at 512-232-5050 or report their concerns using the online submission form.

Ombuds

• The Ombuds Office is staffed by mediating professionals who offer free, confidential, neutral, and informal consultations. Ombuds representatives can listen and talk you through difficult situations, can direct you to appropriate campus departments or resources based on your needs, and can help coach you as you prepare to have difficult conversations with supervisors, peers, or students. While Ombudspeople will not intervene on your behalf, they are an excellent resource for those who would like to work with a neutral party to advise them on situations related to their enrollment or employment at UT.

Student Emergency Services (SES)

• Student Emergency Services (SES) in the Office of the Dean of Students serves as a primary point of contact for students and their families and assists with navigating campus and community resources. SES can help students by offering information regarding course load reductions or full withdrawals, emergency funds, short-term emergency housing, referrals to appropriate campus offices, discrete notifications to professors regarding absences, and coordination with families.

UT Counseling & Mental Health Center (CMHC)

• 24-hour crisis line: (512) 471-2255: Between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, the UT Counseling & Mental Health Center offers graduate and undergraduate students individual counseling, group classes, 24-hour telephone counseling, and a MindBody Lab. In the event of an emergency, you can always reach a professional at the 24-hour crisis hotline: (512) 471-CALL (2255). If you have a concern about an undergraduate student or graduate student, you can contact a Counselors in Academic Residence Program (CARE) counselor to follow up. CARE counselors are especially suited to addressing some of the following: anxiety, coping with failure, depression, managing stress, perfectionism, and test anxiety.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

• The Employee Assistance Program offers consultations designed to provide support and promote mental health and wellness. These services are available M-F 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM (including over the lunch break) and are free of charge to all UT employees.

Signature Course Academic Fellows are responsible for the following:

• Participating in meetings led by Signature Course staff in the late spring and late summer to develop peer leadership and mentoring skills;
• Meeting with the Signature Course team during the fall semester to give mid-semester feedback;
• Attending (but not registering for) every section of the instructor's UGS/T C 302 class;
• Offering regular "office hours" for students to discuss course difficulties and/or provide feedback on class assignments/material. 

As an SC Academic Fellow, your role may look a little different depending on the course and the instructor. Some may focus on connecting with students during office hours, while others may help facilitate occasional class discussions. You might support your peers with writing assignments, offer guidance on presentations, or assist with other course activities--with support from the Signature Course team when needed. 

You and your instructor will work together to define your specific responsibilities, tailoring your role to fit the needs of the course and your strengths. SC Academic Fellows typically work up to 4 hours per week and do not have any formal grading responsibilities.

To serve as an SC Academic Fellow, you must:

• Have previously completed the course (T C or UGS 302) you're supporting
• Be enrolled as an undergraduate student during the semester you are working
• Be in good academic standing, with a minimum GPA or 2.0

These requirements help ensure you are well-prepared to support and mentor students in the course. 

Signature Course Academic Fellows are hired and formally appointed through the Signature course office in Academic Affairs. Once you are nominated, you will recieve details about your appointment, including your pay rate. 

If you have questions about pay, timesheets, or other administrative processes, please contact the Signature Course team at sigcourses@austin.utexas.edu.