GTA support in Geography and Earth Sciences

Summary

In the School of Geography and Earth Sciences, a number of initiatives have been put in place to support GTAs in assessment and feedback. The initiatives aim to give GTAs enough support, guidance and subject specific training to make workload manageable relative to contract hours, thereby ensuring consistency and quality of teaching, assessment and feedback and that the GTAs have a good experience in their role. 

Key points

College: Science and Engineering
School: School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
Corresponding contacts: Dr Hannah Mathers and Dr Cheryl McGeachan
Implemented since: The approach as it is working today has been implemented incrementally through the past 10 years.

The role of GTAs in the school

Levels: GTAs teach on level 1-4
Class formats: GTAs mainly teach tutorials and labs but are sometimes also asked to do guest lectures or assist on field classes
Assessment: Not all employed GTAs mark student work, but the ones that do may mark presentations, posters and/or mid-term essays

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Objectives and outcomes

The main objectives in this approach to supporting GTAs in assessment and feedback have been to:

  • standardise and formalise procedures and materials so that workload becomes manageable relative to contract hours
  • create a culture of openness, dialogue and shared practice among all staff and within the GTA group
  • recognise the valuable and up-to-date experience GTAs have from working closely with students.

The various initiatives and procedures set in place are detailed below with information on how they support GTA assessment and feedback practices and the benefits to the department, GTA welfare, and student learning. 

Introductory training session

At the beginning of the academic year, the school offers an introductory 2-hour training session.

At the introductory training session:

  • the expectations of the GTAs are clearly set out
  • it is clarified what support is in place and who to contact with queries
  • a range of topics related to GTA duties is covered, such as classroom management, disability services, mental health and student welfare and what is expected of GTAs in relation to this and how to give feedback
  • the GTAs are specifically engaged in a discussion about what good feedback is and how feedback is provided in the classroom

The school has found that one comprehensive training session is more effective than multiple sessions spread over a longer time period. This may vary depending on the school and the areas that need to be covered. As marking is not carried out by all GTAs, there is a separate training session on marking later in the term (see below for details).  

Benefits 
  • Many of the anxieties or worries associated with any new job can be limited by making expectations clear and letting the GTAs know where they can find additional support, particularly amongst their community of teaching peers. This allows them to focus on their actual tasks.
  • Already creating a discussion of what constitutes good feedback (in and beyond the classroom) from the very start, will increase reflection on feedback practice and point GTAs in the right direction.
  • An introductory training session can help establish a good work community, which is crucial to laying the grounds for shared practice, peer mentoring and shadowing etc.

Teaching meetings

On the courses where GTAs teach, there are bi-weekly teaching meetings. Before teaching starts, the GTAs are sent a schedule with all of the teaching meetings. It is expected that both new and continuing GTAs attend and the meetings are a part of their contract.

  • The week ahead of every new lab or tutorial, the GTA teaching team and the course convenor have a meeting where they:
    • talk about how the last session went
    • discuss problem solving for the next sessions coming up
    • go over the teaching material and lesson plans for the upcoming session
    • emphasise and discuss the ILOs in relation to the teaching material.
    • If the next session involves assessment and marking, they discuss marking and feedback criteria for that specific course’s assessment (typically posters or presentations – essay marking is discussed at the marking workshop). 
Benefits 
  • Having a designated time where problems can be discussed, and queries can be answered, limits the amount of time spent on liaising individually with each GTA.
  • Having a meeting before each session can be an excellent way for more experienced GTAs to share their experience and make new GTAs more comfortable in the role.
  • Discussing and linking ILOs to the teaching material and activities helps clarify what the GTAs should expect of the students and how they can guide them towards these expectations through feedback.
  • Having a designated time to discuss marking and feedback criteria within the teaching team ensures consistency across the board and limits anxiety for new markers.
  • GTAs can give valuable feedback to the convenor about student learning or about whether certain concepts from the lectures need more explanation in time for the lecturers to address it.

Providing teaching materials

The course convenors provide lesson plans for each of teaching sessions. In the lesson plans:

  • all teaching materials and activities for the session are included
  • it is clearly set out what the students need to get out of each session 

In the teaching meetings, the convenors collate feedback from the GTAs on how effective the materials and activities were, on what worked and what didn’t work, ensuring that all materials are up to date. In some years, budget allowing, the school has employed GTAs to redesign and revise teaching materials, supervised by an experienced member of staff. 

Benefits 
  • Providing material and lesson plans ensures that the workload is manageable relative to the amount of preparation time and guarantees consistency and quality across the board.
  • Standardising the teaching material for the course as a whole means that each GTA doesn’t have to spend individual time creating materials and it ensures that all learning activities feed into the ILOs and prepare the students for their assessments.
  • Clearly setting out what the students need to get out of each session helps clarify to the GTAs what good performance is and allows them to better target the in-class feedback.
  • By including GTAs in redesign and revision of teaching materials, the GTAs valuable hand-on experience is recognised and implemented to improve the resources so that they best support the students in achieving the learning objectives. 

Marking workshop and feedback proforma

Marking and training 

Essay marking is an additional role that GTAs can commit to as they wish. Marking is usually done by GTAs who have teaching experience on the course but who aren’t necessarily teaching that year (often final year PhDs who can’t commit to the weekly schedule). New markers can choose to take on the responsibility of marking just a few submissions. New markers never mark more than 15 essays at a time. 

If GTAs sign up to do marking for the first time, it is compulsory that they come along to a 1-2-hour training session specifically on marking. Continuing markers are welcome to attend as well. The session takes place a few weeks before the essays are due. 

At the marking workshop:

  • the formalities surrounding the duties are explained (payment, time per script etc.)
  • the technicalities of online marking on Moodle is explained
  • the assessment, and how it fits into the course, is explained
  • the essay briefings are discussed and the GTAs are provided with lists of references and slides from the lectures (these are for the markers’ reference, not for them to read through)
  • the marking criteria are discussed
  • they discuss how to utilise phrasing to make sure that their feedback maps against the marking criteria
  • they do group discussion exercises based on (made up) examples of good and bad feedback
  • The feedback proforma is explained and they discuss how they can signpost what the students are to do with the feedback. 

Feedback proforma

Because the level and quantity of the feedback differed from marker to marker, the school introduced a feedback proforma for pre-honours assessments:

  • All feedback must consist of 6-8 lines of generic feedback which justify the grade as well as 3 bullet points outlining what the student could do to improve towards the next assessment. 

All staff use the same format where applicable.

Benefits 
  • GTAs get less worried about their feedback because it is standardised, and the expectations have been set out clearly
  • Introducing the marking workshop and the feedback proforma has reduced the number of students coming back to course convenors with queries about the feedback and grades they got
  • When everything is formalised and standardised it gets easier for the convenor to handle student queries about their feedback or grades (which the GTAs aren’t paid for)
  • In evaluations students have emphasised that they appreciated the format of the feedback. The school has therefore started to implement the proforma beyond pre-honours courses. 

Using Moodle to increase marking and feedback support

When marking takes place, the possibilities of Moodle are used to increase the support and feedback GTAs receive and to make the process more transparent. The convenors use this function to provide support and feedback to new markers as well as to moderate the essays.

  • The convenors make sure to that they tell the GTAs which essays they are marking and mark a few of the essays right after the hand-in deadline. The GTAs can then parachute in and look at their marking examples.
  • The conveners can look on new markers’ essays within Moodle and provide feedback on their feedback. 
  • The convenors can do the moderation entirely within Moodle without GTAs having to send examples through email.
Benefits 
  • New markers are provided with examples from the beginning, but the convenor doesn’t have to worry about finding past examples.
  • Part of the administration burden is eased for both GTAs and convenors. Everything takes place on the Moodle platform, GTAs don’t have to send samples of marking by email and convenors can easily get an idea of how the process is going.