The UAW Academic Student Employees (ASEs) contract governs appointment and work with academic student employees, including teaching assistants and reader/graders. Most TA positions in HCDE are 220 hours/quarter, though these hours also include some trainings. 

Before class begins 

Communicate about the class

Instructors should reach out to teaching assistants and provide them with a copy of the syllabus (or a draft) and a pointer to the HCDE Instructor Handbook.

Communicate about the teaching assistant's goals

Understanding your teaching assistant's goals can help align their work with their long-term interests. Discussing this early can also help the course benefit most from TAs' expertise and for the TAs' to have the support they need. For example, does the teaching assistant want to plan a class session, give a lecture on some content, or lead an activity? Do they have lots of experience grading within time constraints, or will they be new to grading?

Since autumn 2024, HCDE has encouraged each doctoral student to complete an individual development plan. These plans include goals, short-term, specific steps toward those goals, and supports for those goals and actions. If you are working with an HCDE PhD student, we encourage you to ask if they have any teaching-related goals and see how that might align with the course needs and opportunities.

There are UW resources that can support teaching assistants in development of their teaching expertise. This includes beginning of the year synchronous and year-round asynchronous training designed for TAs as well as topic-specific resources on the Teaching@UW website.

Develop a job plan

Work with the teaching assistant or reader/grader to develop a job plan. Talking through responsibilities, communication channels and expectations, and other logistics can help promote a successful course and prevent small challenges from becoming larger problems.

The following worksheets are designed to support this conversation.

• Short form TA Work Planning Template. This worksheet is designed for experienced TAs and instructors working in an established course.
• Long form TA Work Planning Template. This worksheet is more exhaustive and it includes a suggestion for periodic reflections and evaluations between the TA and instructor. Instructors who are new to working with TAs or TAs who are new to teaching may prefer to use this document. The department may also require use of this form based on past performance. 

Discuss key periods in the course (e.g., assignments to be graded and turnaround times, class sessions which most require TA support) and how that fits with other commitments in the TA's work (e.g., conference travel, personal travel or commitments, busy periods or deadlines in their scholarship). You may be able to make small adjustments to the course timeline (e.g., adjusting due dates) and the TA may be able to make adjustments to their other commitments (e.g., adjusting travel or milestone dates) to make this work better. An instructor should not take on extra work to accommodate these conflicts. If you identify conflicts that cannot be navigated, please contact the Associate Chair for Educational Programs as soon as possible–preferably before the quarter begins–to identify other solutions. 

During the quarter

Continue to keep an open line of communication. Both instructors and TAs can refer back to the job work planning worksheet as a resource for expectations. Additionally, as you get into the quarter, you may find that you need to adapt.

We encourage you to work with TAs as partners in delivering a successful course. If students give challenging feedback or your conduct a mid-quarter evaluation, consider engaging TAs in working with the feedback to adjust the course, e.g., inviting them a meeting with Engineering Teaching and Learning to review the mid-quarter feedback from a small-group interactive discussion.

If TAs face difficulty completing the expected work, check in about how they are spending their time (time-tracking can be valuable here). Some common areas for adjusting time:

• cutting back on individual student support and shifting to group office hours or asynchronous, public support to increase use of peer support and deduce repetitive explanations.
• tuning grading feedback to spend a maximum time per assignment

TAs may also benefit from reviewing resources on Teaching@UW website as they learn new teaching skills.

If difficulties persist with getting the support needed for a course, please follow these guidelines for connecting with additional support for you and the TA. We encourage you to reach out for support before the course gets far behind and before you take on additional work.

After the quarter

Teaching assistants must complete a reflective self-evaluation. Instructors may comment on that self-evaluation or provide additional feedback.