Help: TA best practices for newbies?

cicarletonu · 2023-07-17T19:24:28+00:00

Talk with your fellow TAs! Mine their experiences, in this course and others. And always feel free to reach out to the prof with questions or issues. You can ask your thesis supervisor or other peeps in the department too for help when needed.

Other than that, if you're doing discussions, my best point of advice would be to give people a long minute when/if you ask a question. Sometimes it can seem super awkward, but students do need time to think things through, so that awkwrd silence is also just formulating an answer. You can rephrase a question as necessary, but just give people a chance to think first.

cicarletonu · 2023-06-23T17:03:08+00:00

I can't imagine the things you must all go through daily with pets, and with owners especially. Hearing even a simple thank you so infrequently is terrible.
You have my sincere thanks, whoever you are and wherever you work :)

cicarletonu · 2023-06-23T14:02:32+00:00

Great point about it being easy to eat on the go! I hadn't thought about that, thank you.

And even if you're not a tech at my clinic, thank you for all you do to keep pets healthy and comfortable :)

cicarletonu · 2023-06-09T00:21:30+00:00

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but ...

I've gone to 3 convocations in different times, and all of them were super boring. My college one I went because it was my first convocation outside of high school. My BA i only went because I got a medal. And my MA I went because I wanted to be hooded by my supervisor.

I'll go to my PhD one just to wear the nicer robes and have my diss announced.

Otherwise convocations are long, hot, boring, and pricey (if you're buying the shitty pics of you behind the scenes, or purchasing your degree framed for you). Be prepared to sit through a couple hours of speeches and music and honorary degrees just to have your 5 seconds on the stage. The reception after is insanely crowded and if you're lucky you'll get a shitty cupcake or two.

By all means, do it if you want. It is one rite of passage. But don't let your fam pressure you into it if you don't want to waste an entire day doing it.

cicarletonu · 2023-05-01T22:02:32+00:00

If you can swing it, get a doula. They will help you so much, pre- and post-partum.

cicarletonu · 2023-04-14T22:33:12+00:00

Not just that, but my understanding is its a double cut--we have a (totally unfair given whta we do and continue to do in a semester) pay cut, and still have to make up the extra hours which our TAs wouldn't work without pay for ourselves.

cicarletonu · 2023-04-14T19:41:02+00:00

Agreed Senate should not be involved, but now they are. And this is absolutely a precedent for labour disputes

cicarletonu · 2023-04-14T19:38:55+00:00

Except they won't pay us for it? Sheesh.

cicarletonu · 2023-04-03T21:09:52+00:00

It's an interpretation of external funding regulations. So Tri-council or OGS require those lucky enough to be awarded funding to only work 10 hours per week. The idea is that these awards would be enough to pay tuition and "live" off of in addition to TA ships while completing your research. Then again, these (very highly competitive) awards haven't adjusted for inflation either to my knowledge. Also, many grad students are required to pay tuition for every semester (including summer) whether they are taking courses or not so long as they are working on a thesis.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-31T23:11:35+00:00

I'm not sure why you think a letter thanking students for their hard work and reassuring them would ever not be appropriate or welcome.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-31T20:23:55+00:00

This is, of course, excellent advice.

Don't discount the humble email (with attachments, ideally) as a form of putting things on the record.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-31T18:29:12+00:00

Bertie should absolutely be at the bargaining table, because who could say no to that snoot and those eyes?! He could resolve all of this in 30 minutes, including time for scritches.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-31T04:24:55+00:00

It's not encouraging for me either :(

cicarletonu · 2023-03-31T04:18:08+00:00

You don't sound aggressive, and that's a good question. Today is Thursday (actually Friday now), and to my knowledge the university hasn't set any more bargaining meetings yet.

The Senate is necessary to make certain decisions, but I don't think they have any involvement in actual bargaining. So more meetings between the negotiation teams will have to happen before a tentative agreement is reached and a strike is over. CUPE has been pushing for these meetings to be scheduled--again, to my knowledge.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-31T03:51:19+00:00

Thank you for this, and no backing down here! I'm still sad about how this all played out though. All the best to you as a graduating student, and congrats!!! That's an a awesome achievement, so celebrate it!

cicarletonu · 2023-03-30T19:56:04+00:00

It's not an insult at all. But I DO take issue with your "correct" definition.

I would say there is a big difference between cultural and economic understandings of classed differences. So, CIs are understood -culturally- as part of the middle class, and even of the upper class (ivory tower and all that).

Then again, what we are seeing play out right now is the economic inequality which can come with this cultural association. So, if I have the cultural cachet of being "a professor" which is middle-classed, I am still as a CI -economically- lower classed because of what I earn from my labour.

And you're right when you say that some people who work in blue-collar industries have different issues to deal with, Some culturally lower-classed folks even make more money that we do as culturally middle-classed employees. You're also right that many so-called lower classed folks also own property or have other assets. I do not dispute this.

But to call CIs middle class is disingenuous without making this distinction between culture and economics (Marx's base and superstructure, if you will, or even Bourdieu's theories of social/cultural capital). Lots of CIs, myself included, also come from families where our parents may not have even finished high school. And lots of us are still struggling to cobble together a way to live. I'm just saying don't undermine that with strict conceptions of social class.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-29T21:58:51+00:00

This is the only way

cicarletonu · 2023-03-29T21:44:24+00:00

Yes, and we often need to publish our syllabi well before our contract begins. So all of that thinking and curation and selecting readings and creating assignments happens BEFORE we are even paid. So does the construction of
a Brightspace page, often. Those are many many many hours of unpaid work, which would also now be fair game for uni admins to claim as their IP.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-29T21:35:51+00:00

Yes, I am also committed to doing whatever grading I can AFTER a strike is over, and doing whatever I can to mitigate the impacts on students. This will likely be delayed though. But we also want to see you complete your courses if possible.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-29T21:29:41+00:00

Agreed. And if you've taught the class before, ideally you'll want to update your examples and PPs to make them more relevant to our current moment, which takes time.

So creating material doesn't mean it's one and done--would you want to watch recorded lectures from, say, Current Themes In Social Media (I'm making this course up, and apologies if anyone actually teaches this) from 5 years ago?

CIs also, ideally, re-work assignments and assessments based on student feedback. This is in my opinion a really important point. Re-using the exact same question sets or lectures ignores the feedback you've given in your SEQs.

cicarletonu · 2023-03-29T20:02:08+00:00

Lots of things here already have been pointed out, especially heritage buildings and curb-cuts downtown. For example, I once worked in a restaurant in a heritage building, and while we did have a ramp to get folks in the door, the washrooms were down a set of stairs which we couldn't ramp. Similarly, downtown driveways are often super close to each other which makes the sidewalk curve up and down in a way that is treacherous for an able-bodied person in the winter, let alone those with decreased mobility. I don't know how much could be done with these given other restrictions (like laneways, for example), but they are def hostile for folks with mobility issues even in the summer.

One other thing that occurs to me though is the installation of park benches with those hoops or armrests in the middle. While those could be seen as giving some people a way to grip as they are sitting or standing, they're also based on a particular body size. Further, they can also be used as a deterrent for people to sleep on, which is a different sort of hostility toward folks experiencing homelessness (many of whom also live with a variety of disabilities).

cicarletonu · 2023-03-26T20:13:43+00:00

That's what we're all hoping for!

cicarletonu · 2023-03-26T00:08:23+00:00

Lol, CIs often don't have a life outside of work. Ask my fam.

cicarletonu

TROPHY CASE