Duties of Graduate Students with Teaching Assistantships

Last updated: Fall 2005

All entering graduate students are required to attend a one-week teacher training program which is usually scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. on Monday of the week before fall classes begin. This program is designed to prepare graduate students to lead calculus labs and to begin the training for teaching a laboratory calculus course or other introductory calculus course. To see a detailed schedule for the most recent (or next) training week, refer to the training week schedule.

All first-year graduate students will participate in a year-long teacher training program which is run by Jack Bookman of the Math Department, and which will include seminars, observing experienced teachers, practice teaching while being video-taped, practice grading, practice test writing, and guidance on holding conferences with undergraduates. After a graduate student begins teaching (normally in the second year), a faculty member will periodically visit the class and provide feedback to the teaching assistant. For more details about this training you can read Jack Bookman's teacher training outline.

First-year graduate students usually are assigned the job of leading or assisting with a calculus lab. Each lab meets once a week for one hour and forty-five minutes. In these labs we use a locally written lab manual and we ask students to use the TI-83 calculator (or one with similar capabilities). Lab assistants will also grade papers from labs, participate in the helproom, and help with the grading of the Departmental final exams at the end of the semester.

Once a graduate student has been assigned to teach a class, then that teacher will have the same duties that all teachers in our couses assume. In addition to the usual lesson writing, lecturing, and grading, these duties also entail participation (for 2 hours a week) in a Departmental help room. All teachers help to grade the departmental exams at the end of the semester.