Midway through the fall/spring semester we send out an application for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (UTAs) for Neuroscience courses. Students are eligible to apply for any course they have previously taken or are currently completing. Questions about becoming a TA can be addressed to advising@neuro.gatech.edu.
Teaching Assistants Duties & Responsibilities:
- Co or solo teaching in a single laboratory session (lab TA) or facilitate a single lecture session (possibly to include recitation sessions) (lecture TA)
- Supporting active learning in lecture sections
- Assisting in the preparation of learning materials
- Providing students with guidance in interpretation of course subject matter
- Holding office hours/appointments with students (usually 1 hour per week)
- Grading assessments such as papers and reports, tests, quizzes, homework
- Course administration tasks like attendance and participation
- Additional duties defined by the course instructor
UTA Training Courses
UTAs enroll in two teaching preparatory courses, BIOS 4697 and CETL 2000 NEUR, in the first semester as a teaching assistant. BIOS 4697 can count as a Neuroscience Elective. In subsequent semesters, experienced UTAs will continue to enroll in BIOS 4697 but will not need to re-take CETL 2000.
Alternatively, returning UTAs have the option, with permission of instructor, to enroll in TA for Audit or Pay (BIOS 4696), an audit only course that does not incur tuition and cannot be used toward the BS degree.
TA Evaluations
Instructors and TAs can and should discuss formative feedback at the mid-semester. Additionally, all TAs are entered into the TAOS student opinion survey to receive end-of-semester anonymous feedback from students.
Confidentiality and Academic Integrity
As a TA you will be assessing the work of your peers or near-peers, and, in some cases, your friends. As a member of the Neuroscience Department teaching team, you will be expected to maintain a professional relationship with all students in your assigned course and abide by all university, state, and federal policies, including the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regarding student privacy. You will be provided with these rules and expectations as part of the CETL 2000 TA Training course. In addition, TAs are expected to abide by the Georgia Tech Honor Code and to recognize that either allowing your relationship with a student to influence the grades you assign or intentionally manipulating grades in any way is a violation of the GT Honor Code.
Should A Problem Arise
We encourage you to communicate promptly regarding any problems or issues you encounter during your TA position. Depending on the nature of the issue, you should discuss the situation with the faculty instructor in the course you are teaching, the course instructors for CETL 2000 and/or the Director of the Neuroscience TA Program, Dr. Christina Ragan.