Teaching assistants: “Extraordinarily gifted,” English proficient

Many undergraduates at Pitt have walked into a classroom only to find someone just a few years… Many undergraduates at Pitt have walked into a classroom only to find someone just a few years their senior with the job of teaching them. Many undergraduate students attend recitations and labs, unaware of the qualifications held by those teaching them.

Most graduate students at Pitt receive a salary and health benefits when working 20 hours a week as teaching assistants, but not without a rigorous program of training and tests of eligibility. On a very basic level, these students are considered for employment based upon their acceptance to the particular graduate school to which they have applied and their legal eligibility for employment.

But it is not nearly that simple. In the English department, for example, graduate students are required to complete a seminar in pedagogy and meet with a mentoring group of fellow teaching assistants and faculty advisers to discuss their classroom situations.

TAs are closely observed by faculty members, and they generally only teach lower-level courses, labs and recitations — classes that are often tailored to their own strengths.

Department of chemistry chair Kenneth Jordan noted that department leaders want to place teaching assistants in situations in which they will perform well.

“The students are given teaching assignments in which they may excel or their area of expertise,” Jordan said. “We would not have a physical chemistry student teach a class in organic chemistry, and visa versa.”

A doctoral student cannot begin her term as a teaching assistant until her second year of graduate school.

Erik Angner, a graduate student in the economics department, said his meticulous training included orientation with the department chair, a three-credit faculty development course, frequent observation by the faculty of the department and a one-credit course called “The Teaching Practicum,” which oriented him to the course he teaches.

Though the requirements of attaining the title of teaching assistant are department-specific, the majority of the graduate schools at Pitt follow similar procedures, priding themselves in allowing graduate students who excel in particular areas to gain experience by teaching undergraduate students.

Students must also pass a test of English as a foreign language, administered by the department of linguistics, to determine English proficiency. International students, in particular, must meet this requirement, and it is most applicable in departments of the sciences.

Eric Clarke, the director of graduate studies in the English department, offered praise for the ability of his department’s senior staff writers.

“I think that the teaching assistants we have have earned the right because they are extraordinarily gifted,” Clarke said. “They wouldn’t be in the program unless they were very talented and gifted.”

Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences John Cooper said faculty members must work alongside graduate students to provide an undergraduate education.

“The two groups are a part of the mix of a community of scholars that makes up the university experience,” Cooper said.

Justification for an undergraduate education given by graduate students rather than faculty often comes back to the credibility and scrupulous training they receive.

From his experience as a teaching assistant, Angner believes that their closeness in age to students makes TAs more capable than professors at understanding what undergraduate students go through.

“I think we may be better able to relate to the struggles of undergraduate students,” Angner said. “This makes us more likely to understand the problems students are facing and to know what kind of support they need in order to overcome them.”