Is my university using TA's excessively?

Question

Currently, at a broad level, the scenario I am observing is as follows:

Tasks by Instructor (assistant professor, associate professor, professor)

1. Collecting presentations from either the internet or asks TA's to make a presentation or rarely prepares a presentation for a given topic and presents it in front of students.

2. Doesn't deal with coding

3. Clarifies the theoretical doubts asked by students during class timings only.

Tasks by Ph.D. TA

1. Prepares content for instructor class (sometimes)

2. Prepares coding and theoretical content for tutorial class

3. Clarifies doubts in tutorial class

4. Deals with both theoretical and coding aspects for the tutorial sessions.

5. Receives more doubts from students since students work on the topic after a (theoretic) introductory lecture by the instructor.

6. Prepares assignment questions and also answers keys.

7. Evaluates the submitted assignments, makes result sheets, distributes grades and deals with grade discrepancies.

Most of the time, postgraduate TAs assists in the last two steps. (It is not happening during pandemic days).

In general, for every couple of weeks, there will be a tutorial class. It takes at least 4 full days to complete all the tasks with satisfaction. Covering both mathematical and coding aspects in great detail is a challenging task. And even if one prepares with so much effort, it may not be useful for the research work.

So, I am wondering whether the workload is the same for a Ph.D. TA's in other universities or is my university is using them excessively?

Note: Although there are guidelines regarding TA work, no instructor follows them in strict sense.

Answer 1

Actually, I don't think it is excessive, though it may be a bit steep. It was a long time ago, but when I was a PhD student in mathematics at an R1 in the US, the "load" of a TA was about half that of the teaching load of a professor (1 course equivalent vs 2 for a professor). I don't see anything in your list that is really out of bounds, assuming #1 is occasional. In fact, all of it is good training for anyone wanting a career in academia. You need to practice all these things to get good at them.

I was thrilled (thrilled, I say) when, as an advanced TA, I was given complete responsibility for one section (of many) of an elementary course. The course was pretty standard so there wasn't much course design prep and the final exam was common to all sections, but, otherwise, the course was mine.

Answer 2

Yes, because this is unfair to the students.

Simply put, every student should have exactly the same opportunities, regardless of who their TA is. As such, every TA should be working off of the same lesson plans, the same example questions, the same homework problems, etc.

If each TA is responsible for creating the material for their own tutorials, then this isn't possible, and you have a fundamental problem of equity. Either the instructor in charge should be organising meetings for the TAs to share the material they've prepared to finalise the plans for each week's tutorial, or the instructor in charge should be the one deciding what is being taught in each tutorial.

Similarly, all students should be getting the same items for their marked assessment, and there should be moderation sessions for each piece of assessment where the TAs get together, show each other examples from the work submitted to them of what they think each letter mark looks like, and then discuss this with each other to ensure consistency in their marking.