Teaching assistants crucial to performance of MSU

“Finally, it is important to recognize that graduate students…”

EXACTLY CORRECT! It is important to recognize you are still a student! Operative word there…student. You are given the privilege to act as a teaching assistant and all you do is complain. Get over yourself and realize you are still a student, that is providing a service, that in most cases can be provided by another student with lesser qualifications.

Graduate students are more than students but less than professors. Medical doctors are considered REAL doctors even while they are still in school—Elizabeth points out that our relationship to our work is likewise worthy of professional definition. Grad students are often treated as “just students” but the reality is that we do work as well. We are both employees AND students. This is not due to some benevolent wish-granting university, but an employer/employee contract. We deserve fair compensation and rights under that contract—even though we happen to be students at the same time.

This is why I hate TAs, they are convinced they are great teachers, but most I have had are awful. They mean well but can’t sub a TA for a professor with years of teaching experience and now they want more. YOU ARE STUDENTS, if you are not satisfied with pay and benefits not to mention many of you have tuition waivers, then go get a job off campus and see what you’ll get from them you greedy sorry excuses for instructors. A free graduate degree is more than enough payment in my book.

I rather be in a classroom of 30 with a professor like the pictures in all the MSU marketing material that was sent to me. But i doubt that will ever happen, those are just staged shots I believe.

Also MSU is not competitive or selective, so to think you are in some elite very selective school and that you landed one of the small number of TA positions makes you some sort of hero, is just dumb. Over a 1/3 (about 33%) of classes at MSU (which is really really pathetic given our peer schools have at the highest 9% of their classes taught by non-faculty)are taught by grad students, which means there are a lot of openings. So compound MSUs lack of selectivity and tons of openings for graduate instructors you have a recipe for awful instructors.

Agree with Elizabeth M. Pellerito is a “idiot”…

Having done my undergrad at MSU now a grad student at Purdue, I do notice MSU does over use TAs. TAs at Purdue (me being on of them) are usually limited to graders, lab instructors or recitations leaders. Rarely the primary instructor. Only about 3% of classes at Purdue are taught by non-faculty and those are always PhD candidates who have been teaching for years.

MSU really needs to clean up its act. At MSU I was convinced that all large state schools operate like MSU, most don’t, I realize now. Most take active efforts in reducing class size and increasing faculty teaching roles.

If Purdue can do it, why can’t MSU. Then we wouldn’t have all these TAs teaching and no need to over compensate them for a amateur teaching role. My advice is eliminate many TA teaching positions, increase faculty teaching loads with undergrads (many of these people are well paid and therefore should teach more) and this problem should fix itself (might also include of hiring more associate faculty). TAs will be less depended upon then in a sense less powerful of a union and likely to ask for very little. Works here at Purdue, undergrad students are happy since their classes are relatively small for a large state school and almost all are taught by faculty. Us grad students aren’t worked hard and fairly compensated. Everyone is happy…

Kate
MSU 2008

Kate, I’m wondering how you got accepted to Purdue with such terrible spelling and grammar skills. “Us” grad students? “A amateur” teaching role? “Over use”?

Perhaps you should have paid more attention in your TA-taught English courses at MSU.

What Kate, Robert, and “Idiot” don’t seem to understand is that pre-professionalization is a part of the graduate experience. A professor fresh out of school with no teaching experience is an ugly sight.

Furthermore, Grad students are eminently qualified to teach — we all have Bachelor’s degrees, and many of us also have our Master’s degrees. I have both, making me qualified to teach the lower-level courses for which graduate instructors are eligible, so the idea that graduate instructors are compromising the quality of education at MSU is completely absurd. Professors still teach most of the upper-level courses.

Finally, to Kate, Robert, and “Idiot”: come back when you’ve actually done some time in front of the classroom and we’ll have a rational discussion about what a TA “deserves.” Your ill-informed opinions and weak attempts to shame Elizabeth into silence show your complete ignorance of the situation and utter immaturity.

GradStudent,

Having a BS or MS in your field doesn’t make you qualified to teach it. Knowing the material and teaching it are 2 different things. Teaching is more of a art and it takes years to actually become a effective teacher.

Funny most high schools are more selective when it comes to instructors. My high school required of course a BS, 100 hours of student teaching, a license by the state of Illinois and the new hire would have to shadow a faculty member in their department for a entire school year then upon completing that, he or she would need a vote of confidence by the department faculty before he or she wasn’t given a full time teaching roll. At MSU? What a joke, all you need is a degree and some crash course training program. I thought this is higher education. Sad that a public high school takes more effort in making sure its instructors are top notch and MSU which charges a fortune we get complete non-sense in terms of instructors.

English is my 4th language (that means I’m fluent in 4 languages, you?). German being my first. I would love to see you go to Germany, learn German, then enroll in a University earn a electrical engineering degree in which all courses are taught in German. Then graduate near the top of your class and then get admitted to and enroll in a top engineering school for grad school… When you can even come close to doing that, then you can tell me about my grammar.

Kate

I would high five Kate if I could… Kate, as you may know there are many ignorant idiots at MSU so take those comments with a grain of salt.

This is a blog, who even cares about proper grammar, the idea is to allow people to share their thoughts and opinions. The english doesn’t have to be perfect, just has to be understandable.

Grad Student…utter immaturity? You sound like a child who didn’t get to pick out the toy they wanted from the store. You want better benefits, better salary? Get a real job. You are disposable and expendable. There are an overabundance of people like you with a B.A. and a M.S. You are not uniquely qualified. You are pretty darn average. Your attempt to make yourself sound more important than you really are is the real mark of immaturity. I dealt with grad students like you who had to tell themselves they were important and qualified in order to stomach all the garbage work they had to do. Why is it that you have to do these menial task for so little pay? BECAUSE YOU ARE STILL A STUDENT, what is so difficult for you to grasp about that concept. If you were a post doc then that’s different. You’re not, end of story.

Like we teachers say “if you can’t do it, teach it”

“a 300-person lecture hall led by a full professor but with outsourced grading and instruction by iClicker, or a 30-person section in which a TA leads debate and discussion and provides personal and extensive feedback on writing and critical thinking skills?”…

what a joke, most of my class time with TAs is awkward silence or the TA saying “hmmm, not sure, will get back to you”… this elizabeth person lives in La La Land.

Robert – I am sorry you could not get into grad school but that is no reason to rant against graduate students who are more than qualified to teach you IAH. Don’t let that chip on your shoulder weigh you down too much.

Clearly, Kate is very proud of herself.

I would be proud of myself if I could do what Kate did. English is my first language and barely get B’s and C’s in my engineering classes.

Lots of hate in this blog, everyone just needs to relax. TAs can be seen as a good thing and also can be seen as a bag thing. Its in the eye of the beholder.

Post Doc…

There are a few letters that follow my Name. The last two are JD. I couldn’t get into gradschool…that’s funny. Call me when you get your next DUI.

Also, because I have a BA and a JD that must make me qualified teach anything I want.

Further, why don’t you use your name when you comment? If you have a valid point why are you afraid to say who you are? I at least credit the author of this article with having the guts to put their name on it. You can’t even do that on one comment. More than likely, it is because you aren’t a post doc at all, just a whiney grad student with no backbone.

Good thing about having TAs they are a lot more lax on grades and more willing to change grades. I think most TAs know they are not exactly good instructors so they in a sense make up for it with the grading which is good for us students. Lets face it, this is MSU, most of us are here to get the grades and if learning happens along the way, great, but learning is not a priority to most undergrads. If you want to actually learn the material, TAs are a bad thing, but if you just want get through the class and get a good grade (which is what most MSU students want) then TAs are a good thing.

Plus if you are one of the few students that actually want to learn the material, MSU is a poor choice of school to do it at. MSU is like a large factory processing students. Read, memorize and regurgitate; then move on to the next class. Not really a environment conducive to learning. But if you want to have a great time while earning a college degree, MSU is a good place to do it.

“These are individuals who have had to complete a degree (often multiple degrees), apply and be accepted to a highly competitive institution and then apply each semester for a limited number of teaching positions in their department.”

funny, didn’t know MSU was considered highly competitive given over 75% of applicants are admitted. The least selective school in the Big Ten.

Pellerito’s definition of highly competitive is very skewed.

KJ- I’m guessing your figure of 75% is for undergraduate admissions, or an aggregate of undergrad and grad. I’m fairly certain that MSU has a number of graduate programs (physics, education, to name a few off the top of my head) which are more ‘competitive’ than that, if admissions rates are what you are using as your metric…

JD huh? Well done Robert, but law school is not grad school – it is less competitive and far easier to get into – don’t congratulate yourself too much.

I have never had a DUI nor will I ever get one – but thanks for the offer.

Like a lot of law students I am guessing grad schools turned you down so you took the easy option – but once again I will reiterate that that is no reason to rally against grad students who are simply trying to make a living and learn their trade.

Take it easy!

In my opinion, often times TAs are better than some professors. A large number profs are least interested in teaching and more towards research (if someone is a mediocre teacher but brings in loads of grant money, then that person is more likely to get tenure than somene who is primarily focused on teaching alone). If someone wants profs teaching then I think a 4-year college is best suited. Also, I think TAs can relate to an undergrad student more than a professor because they are one themselves not too long ago. Of course there are language barriers and other possible negativities but belittling grad students isn’t fair, I think.

Like Jason said, TAs are good when you want the better grades since they are more lenient on grades and tend to change them more often.

TAs are not good if you actually want to learn the material since most TAs have no real world experience where they can demonstrate or discuss where the material is used in the real world. All they can do is repeat what text books and lecture slides say. Their claim of running discussions and having active learning is without merit. In my 3 years here have yet to see a TA run a good discussion . TAs are really only good in my opinion for yes and no questions.

My advice is to avoid TAs and always seek out a professor. Even if there is no professor for the class, there is almost always a course coordinator and from my experience all it takes is a email stating you need help and most likely they are willing to meet with you. I never seek out TAs for help anymore, just faculty… Try to get your moneys worth and talk to the experts!!! TAs are the last line of “defense” for me, since I have had nothing but bad experiences with them.