Teaching Assistants Teaching Classes, a Harm to Students Education?

In larger universities, teaching assistants are now taking over the responsibilities of teaching classes with a large amount of students. Are students truly benefiting from this type of education? Is it what they expect when paying high fees for their education?

Students are often put into classes with teaching assistants in their higher education. With this though are they truly learning to help them move on to higher level courses successfully? In the past I have had a teaching assistant as a teacher, who was one of the worst teachers I ever had. Luckily, the class was for my minor and I was supposed to be learning things I already knew,  so I didn’t suffer as much as I would if I had, had this teacher for a course as a pre-requisite for a major class.

Many biology majors regularly have teaching assistants teaching their lab classes though, where the teaching assistants are unable to answer their questions or don’t know much about what they’re talking about. If you’re lucky, your teaching assistant knows more than the students do and can help when you’re struggling in the lab but more often than not students struggle with this class arrangement.

Should teaching assistants be allowed to teach without the supervision of an experienced teacher to help them? There must be a better way to still allow teaching assistants to have the experience of teaching without sacrificing the education of students trying to do well in their classes. A camera recording where someone can observe the teaching assistant and help them improve to benefit the teaching assistant and the students without having to have someone there all the time. Many different options can be given to improve the current system without having to hire more teachers.

 

 

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