Teaching Assistant

Serving as a Teaching Assistant is a student-centered, organized, and intentional learning experience that is designed to benefit both the TA and the faculty member. Similar to a Dean’s Scholar, a Teaching Assistant will help the faculty member meet learners’ needs for individual attention and feedback by holding small-group instructional and review sessions once a week. Going beyond the responsibilities of a Dean’s Scholar, the Teaching Assistant also must attend each course meeting, meet once a week with the instructor, and assist the faculty member in classroom management and curricular matters, as requested. Teaching assistants receive one-half the number of credits that the course carries (e.g., acting as a TA for a 4-credit course earns the TA 2 credits). The credits are awarded on a Pass/Fail basis. A student may serve as a teaching assistant for a maximum of two semesters in their time at Pace, whether in the same course or in different courses. A student may not receive credit for acting as a TA in a course in which the student is simultaneously enrolled for substantive credit. For all TAs, a non-exhaustive list of responsibilities include attending each session of the course meeting; understanding the course material sufficiently to explain material to and facilitate the learning of other students; modeling enthusiasm for the subject matter; assisting the faculty member in taking attendance; creating helpful study materials and procedures for current students; suggesting new learning activities to the instructor and to students; providing assistance in giving (ungraded) feedback on written work of other students; conducting weekly review/study sessions; being available for assistance for students who are having difficulty with the material, including meeting them outside of class time; answering oral or emailed questions from students thoroughly, correctly and promptly; referring students to helpful campus resources (e.g., Academic Success) where appropriate; providing informal feedback to the instructor about how students are learning well (or less well) in the class; providing informal feedback to the instructor about how to improve overall student learning outcomes; and altering the instructor if there are students who might especially benefit from extra assistance with the course material. Teaching Assistants are selected by the individual instructor, subject to the approval of the Academic Dean. Ordinarily, any student selected as a TA must have taken that particular course with that particular faculty member before and earned a grade reflecting mastery of the material Credits earned for acting as a TA are treated as curricular credits, not co-curricular credits.