Responsibilities of Teaching

Assistants: Ethical issues

Teaching Assistant responsibilities
1. Make and conduct tutorial problems in class
2. Design and conduct experiments in laboratory
3. Evaluate tutorials/lab journals/exam papers
4. Conduct help sessions/office hours for students
5. Invigilate exams

1 and 2 influence student learning

3 determines their marks, hence grades
4 can play an important role for students who are struggling
academically
5 determines the fair conduct of examinations
Professional behaviour
• Meet deadlines – setting up papers, grading etc
• If you are not clear about what is expected of you – ASK
• If you are not familiar with the course material - inform the
instructor BEFORE classes start
• If you have a fear of public speaking OR interacting with unknown
students - inform the instructor BEFORE classes start
Ethical concerns
Limit to ethics in academics:
• Classroom – fairness, honesty
• Interactions with students

Think about how you would like to be treated as a student

Best to highlight issues by using examples – from your

experience or those of your friends.
Conducting tutorials/experiments
You have been waiting to get a slot on an instrument for three
weeks. You get the slot for 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday
afternoon, but you also have TA duty in a lab from 2 to 5. You
know that the experiment is easy and if you “help” the students
a little, they can complete the experiment by 3:30.
What do you do?
Evaluate tutorials/lab
journals/papers/conduct viva
Important to be fair – evaluate all answer books in the same manner

Decide on a marking scheme – especially if partial credit is to

be given and follow it meticulously

If you do not understand a solution, ASK

Preferably one TA should grade one problem for entire class

Invigilation
Students should neither be inconvenienced nor favored by:

Seating

Answering questions about the paper

Allowing students to leave examination hall for various reasons

Any suspicion of copying should immediately be brought to the

attention of the course instructors
Student interactions
Friends

You are the captain of the basketball team and the best player
from your team is worried he will fail in the course for which
you are the TA. He says he cannot play in the big match
because there is a quiz the next day, unless he can get some
“assurance” of getting good grades?
Student interactions
NOT friends?

A girl from your hostel has been harassing you in the hostel for
the past year. Now she is taking a course for which you are the
TA. She does poorly in the quiz, and at the crib session, you
point to her and say “IIT standards must really be going down
if students like this can get in”

Interactions with students should be professional, respectful and all

criticism should be constructive.
NEVER make denigrating remarks based on students’ regional, linguistic,
ethnic, gender identity.
Student interactions
More than friends

There is a student in the class who you like and ask her out for
coffee.

Is this OK?

Why not?

What should you do?

Student interactions
More than friends

Because you evaluate the students and influence their grades,

you are in a position of power relative to students in your
course.

Hence you CANNOT be romantically involved with any of your

students because it may be abuse of power and punishable
under laws of sexual harassment.
Summary
As Master TAs, you are communicating to your colleagues:
- The importance of being a TA
- The responsibilities
- The ability to connect with students – especially those
who are struggling in the course
- The challenges and how to overcome them
- The ethical concerns that may arise and how to be
prepared for them
- Build a list of experiences, examples, case studies to
highlight the points that you are trying to convey