Apprentice Teacher Responsibilities

Apprentice Teachers are both helpers and learners.  By assisting in instructional work from behind-the-scenes, they will help faculty and Teaching Assistants and, in the process, learn about teaching.

As a rule, only students in the first year of their M.A. work will be eligible for support as Apprentice Teachers. As a rule, no student will work as an Apprentice Teacher for more than two semesters.

Since Apprentice Teachers are supported by departmental funds, this work is counted in semesters of eligibility for departmental aid.

Apprentice Teachers will be assigned to work with specific members of the faculty in specific courses. Under normal circumstances, no graduate student will be assigned (whether as an Apprentice Teacher or a Teaching Assistant) to the same course and instructor for more than two consecutive semesters.

Apprentice Teachers will assist in the instructional process in varied ways, but they will not take personal responsibility for the instruction of a designated group of students (as do many Teaching Assistants). Apprentice Teachers might observe others teaching; they might participate in course planning; they might do some grading; and they might undertake minor research work associated with the course or other aspects of teaching.

Because Apprentice Teachers do not take personal responsibility for the instruction of a designated group of students, they are not assigned certain maximum numbers of students (as, for example, the custom that Teaching Assistants normally have responsibility for no more than 55 students). Nor are Apprentice Teachers included in calculations of TA/student ratios that guide TA assignments by the DGS.

Apprentice Teachers should not be asked to devote more than an average of ten hours weekly to their duties (course readings not included) over a sixteen-week term. It is imperative that this guideline be observed.

Any grading done by Apprentice Teachers must be directly supervised by faculty, not by Teaching Assistants.

Apprentice Teachers will be encouraged to take the COT teacher-training workshop, but they will not be required to do so. That workshop remains a requirement for all Teaching Assistants.

The same process of evaluation used for Teaching Assistants and Instructors will be extended to Apprentice Teachers. The same process of grievance will also apply.

As a rule, Apprentice Teachers will be assigned by the DGS according to the following (unranked) criteria:

--to faculty who indicate an interest in working with Apprentice Teachers;

--to faculty who are teaching especially large classes where the behind--the-scenes assistance of an Apprentice Teacher might be particularly useful;

--to faculty who have demonstrated care and skill in training Apprentice Teachers.