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University Daily Kansan, November 10, 1981
Assistants
From page one
of professors forced the department to put new TAs in charge of their own classes, even though the department really didn't want to.
"We don't like to have a new TA responsible for his own class, but we're so short of professors that we were forced to do it," he said.
"We were given a little brochure on how to teach math," he said.
Charles Smith, a math TA, said he had no direct preparation to teach Calculus 115.
BUT HE SAID he didn't think any previous preparations was necessary.
"All TAs come all there is to need to know to teach," he said. "I'm confident enough that I don't want the actual logistics of the class."
However, Smith did admit to some first-day jitters.
"The first day I was a little nervous and I told my students I were petrified, but we had a couple of weeks. We've gotten used to other."
Michael Kildaff, an English TA, said he went through the three-day English TA orientation. The department's course is intensive and Michael Johnson, director of freshman-sophomore English, called it one of the best in the country. But Kildaff said it wasn't really a good preparation for teaching a class.
"I DON'T THINK you can teach
people to teach in three days," ie said.
The English department also has an ongoing program during the year, a required weekly seminar for teachers and approaches to teaching and problems.
Debra Seely, an English TA, also didn't think the orientation could adequately prepare anyone to teach.
There is also on-the-job training.
The orientation itself is only three days, and that in itself wasn't enough, but we have this weekly class," she said.
"The first semester is a learning semester, but it's guided so no one's going to make gross mistakes," Seely said.
RICHARD CRAIG, a computer science TA, said his preparation involved a meeting the day before enrollment, which was mainly online. Beyond that, he said, he was given a course outline to follow.
Craig said he felt prepared for the class although there were things he would do differently next time.
"I made mistakes," he said. "A few could've been avoided; some couldn't."
For example, he said he didn't emphasize some important things and used some bad examples in class.
Such mistakes lead many people to wonder just how qualified TAs are to teach.
Quinn said TAs should not have full responsibility for a class
"They're not fully qualified to do what they're doing," he said. "Students are being shortchanged."
because they were not qualified to teach.
There is no University-wide policy for determining which graduate students are qualified to teach. That is left to the individual departments.
Usually the decision to hire a TA is made on the basis of letters of recommendation, interviews, grade point average, and a statement of intentions.
THESE THINGS all indicate what kind of student a potential TA has been, but no department seems to have offered such a graduate student to teach a class.
Johnson said the letters of recommendation and other personal information were not a good gauge of teaching ability.
"It's kind of crude stuff to look at for teachers," he said.
Quinn also said hiring TAs without giving much consideration to whether they could teach was a real problem.
"No one knows if they have the ability to teach," he said. "They know the subject, but very little is made to see if they can teach."
Most departments have some kind of mechanism for evaluating TAs, but the University has no uniform policy for evaluating the performance of TAs in their classrooms.
Bricker said the chemistry TAS were evaluated by the students they taught. The department also gives monetary prizes for the best TAS, he
Zuther said the principal evaluation of the English TAS had to do with their graduate work progress, rather than teaching.
"We feel the initial selection process is good enough," he said. "We're not lenient. We just keep on of them and give them lots of help."
THE ENGLISH TAs were evaluated in their teaching by supervisors who sat in on their classes and by the curriculum and instruction survey that students filled out. Johnson said.
Wallace said the computer science department reviewed the teaching ability of TAs every semester based on curriculum and instruction survey.
"We respond to complaints if they are justified."he said.
Vincent said the Spanish department evaluated its TAs on the basis of academic progress toward a degree and on reports written by professors who visited classes the TAs taught. They also use the curriculum and instruction survey to a certain extent, he said.
The math department videotapes its TAs to point out problems and to evaluate teaching skills, Himelberg said.
WITH ALL THIS evaluation and teaching and taking classes,
They take about nine hours of classes in addition to teaching about six hours. They must study, prepare to teach their classes, grade papers and worry about making progress toward their graduate degrees. All this can create an academic pressure cooker for most TAs.
teaching assistants are under tremendous pressure.
"It's a terribly pressure-filled environment," said one TA who didn't want to be identified. "The teacher is very hard on the teaching are pressure-filled."
The TA also said professors wielded power over the assistants.
"The people that are our bosses are the people we're depending on," he said. "They have the power over them, but they contradict a situation or say too much."
"They give the master's degrees. They can squelch our desire to rock the boat or question things."
Quinn said he understood that pressure.
"They are under pressure because they are taking classes," he said. "They want to do well in them. Great demands are made on them in the classes they are taking and with teaching."
"In some ways it balances out real well," she said. "I don't have to be a constant student. I'm not taking a full-time load. I am not full-time
Seely said there was a lot of pressure, but she also said teaching and being a student balanced out well.
teacher. There are not all the pressures of a full-time job."
WHILE TAs are under a lot of pressure, most were conscientious about doing a good job. Zuther said.
"Many overprepare, are enthusiastic and have a fear of failing," he said. "They make very good teachers."
TAs might be very good teachers, but some professors think they should be used differently.
Quinn supports the idea of using graduate students as apprentices under the supervision of a professor.
"Graduate students could be used more effectively this way," he said. "They could conduct a discussion section or something directly under a teacher's supervision, while being coached and helped."
Tas are used this way in many classes, including biology, chemistry, some business and some psychology classes.
Quinn thinks using TAs used in this way would improve the TA program immensely.
GEORGE WOODYARD, associate dean of the graduate school, said the TA program could use improvement.
Student rights committee debates endorsements, budget bill
"I always think things can be improved." he said.
But he said he knew of no University-wide attempt to change the way TAs were used, although he said the individual departments were always looking for ways to improve their TA programs.
Staff Reporter
By MICHAEL ROBINSON Staff Reporter
The Student Senate Rights Committee yesterday gave an unfavorable recommendation to a resolution allowing Senate-funded publications to endorse political candidates and issues and passed the resolution on to the
The committee also passed on to the Senate a bill to amend the membership of the newly created budget sub-committee that was sent on with no recommendation.
The resolution and bill will now be placed on the agenda for tomorrow night's Senate meeting.
The resolution and bill, both authored by Bren Abbott, student body vice president, ran into serious trouble in the committee. The resolution required separate motions before the committee agreed to send it to the Senate.
The resolution would clarify the Senate Code, which prohibits Senate-funded groups from using their funds for "campaign expenses of any type for the purpose of promoting a specific candidate or slate of candidates, or issue, or slate of issues, in any election or referendum."
"I contend that an editorial endorsing a candidate is not a campaign expense," Abbott said in defense of the resolution.
Abbott said he wrote the resolution because he knew of intentions by the University Daily Kansan and the Graduate Student Newspaper to endorse candidates for student body president and vice president.
Scott Faust, Kansan editor, and Tom
Berger, a member of the Graduate Executive Council, confirmed that their publications would publish endorsements this week.
Abbott said that some senators considered those planned endorsements a violation of the Senate Code, but he disagreed.
"Prohibiting the University Daily Kansas, the Graduate Newspaper and the Criterion from endorsing political candidates can be interpreted as national rights," he wrote freedom of the press," he wrote in the resolution.
One person who did not favor the endorsements was Bert Coleman, student body president.
were campaign spending and that they undulv influenced students who voted.
"I think it a dangerous precedent, a very dangerous precedent," he said. "Whether it was my favorite candidate or the vice candidate, I don't think it's right."
SOME COMMITTEE members, including Jan Fink, Rights Committee chairman, said the resolution should be made by the committee has more time to consider it.
The committee first defeated a motion to send the resolution to Senate with no recommendation, with Fink being the decision voting in a 32-deadlock.
But after further discussion, the committee decided 4-1 to send the resolution on with a negative recommendation.
But Abbott told the committee that if it tabled the resolution, there would be no chance for the full Senate to deal with it this year. After tomorrow's Senate vote on the resolution, after the Senate election, and no new legislation can be passed then, he said.
Coleman said that the endorsements
ABBOTT'S BLL, which would alter the membership of the Senate budget subcommittee, created only in September, also came under heavy fire.
In the original legislation to create the committee, which Abbott wrote, the number of non-student senators who could be members were limited to ten. The new bill does not limit the number of non-senators.
"You've got to allow students an equal chance to participate," Abbott said. He said that the committee as it now stood would limit non-senator involvement, especially from minority groups.
"You've got to provide the possibility of letting them have that voice," he said.
Fink said that Abbott's amendment would defeat one of the bill's original purposes, which was to provide consistency to the budget process and to keep the committee from joining the committee in large numbers to approve their budget requests.
"One group can still be overrepresented,"she said.
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