Rethinking the teaching roles and assessment responsibilities of student teaching assistants

ABSTRACT

In this position paper we focus on students who are contracted to fulfil teaching roles. While an accepted practice, student teaching assistants (STAs) tend to lack teaching experience as well as having only limited subject and pedagogical knowledge. As such, there is a trade-off between employing them and maintaining quality in teaching. We identify assessment feedback and grading as particularly important aspects of teaching that are often beyond the capability of many STAs. Rather than suggesting that students should not teach, we provide a nuanced examination of who these students are and argue that assessment and grading should only be entrusted to STAs who can do these tasks to a satisfactory level. Ultimately, we call for a critical discussion on the merits of employing students as teaching assistants, taking into account the diversity within this group and within a teacher’s roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Student teaching assistants
• assessment feedback
• teaching
• quality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As will be explained later on, the term STAs refers to both undergraduate and (post)graduate students. In places where we wish to differentiate between these groups, the terms UTAs (Undergraduate Student Assistants) and GTAs (Graduate Teaching Assistants) will be used.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Navé Wald

Navé Wald, PhD, is a geographer with a particular interest in development studies. He brings his critical social science skills and perspectives to the field of higher education, researching themes such as academic freedom, authenticity, students’ peer review and assessment.

Tony Harland

Tony Harland, PhD, is a Professor of Higher Education. He studies the purposes of a university education. Recent projects have looked at the concept of Powerful Knowledge, students’ peer review, how research and compliance affects teacher development and how students learn through doing research.