Teaching assistants in UK university [closed]

Question

I have accepted a math PhD offer from a university in London. One of the main reasons, other than research, I applied for a PhD is beacause I realy enjoy teaching and I am keen on pursuing a career in academia, if all goes well.

As such, I would like to ask about TA experiences from people that studied at UK universities as well as other countries.

1. Were you allowed to teach whole courses?

2. Were you doing only tutorials and excersise sessions?

3. How many hours did you do TA?

4. What was expeceted of you? Did you have to write notes or prepare any other material?

5. Did you teach subjects outside of your PhD speciality?

6. Did you get Higher Education Academy (HEA) accreditation if you were in the UK? How is HEA perceived in the EU?

7. Was TA-ing enough to help you with the outrageous cost of living in London, if you studied there?

8. Do you have any tips or tricks for delivering good and engaging lectures?

Answer 1

I did TA for several courses during my PhD (in Scotland). I also taught a course as a Teacher.

1. The only time I taught a whole course was then the university was missing a lecturer for this class and resorted to ask PhD students. As I was qualified for the subject (a 2nd year undergrad course) I got selected, and had to give the course, modify/adapt the slides which were given to me, design the coursework, mark them, etc.
   As a TA, I took care of the tutorial/notebook for my supervisor course, both designing them and presenting them in class, which was half of the course timeslot.
   I don't think teaching a whole course as a TA is usual. It depends on your definition of teach. Does that imply making the material? Just presenting it? Normally your university has policies which describes exactly the scope of work a TA has to do. There are probably other type of "rank" you can have. E.g. I had to get approved as an "Approved Teacher" for the course I taught instead of just Approved Tutor (which is TA). Additionally, the policy said a TA shouldn't contribute more than 25% of any course. You could maybe present all the slides for the entire semester. But if your duty includes also modifying them for example, if you were a simple TA, I'd say you would be scammed. A lecturer has a higher salary than a TA because they do more work.

2. For two courses I helped only during the lab/tutorial/exercise sessions. For one of this two class, I also marked the coursework (which was done during the lab, giving live feedback to the student). For another, I designed notebook (exercise) and presented them. I also had a course where I dedicated 1h per week answering students question, like a sort of office hour (either by email, or during online meeting).

3. My university had a guideline for the hours done per week. I think it was less than 20h per week, but they usually discouraged anything more than 10h as it would impact negatively the time spent on the PhD. During one semester, I did up to 10h I think, which was a lot. When teaching the whole course as a teacher, I was spending 10h+ per week (as I was modifying slides, answering students, etc)

4. I was expected to know the material I was talking about/helping the student with. I was always given the slides and the exercise description, as well as the solution when available. The university started giving us 1h of prep time for each 10h of TAing towards the last part of my PhD, as we were expecting to at least spend a little time reading the course. Except for some course where I had forgotten the topic of a particular class, I usually prepared very little since I was only helping for course I was proficient with. When designing the notebook for my supervisor course, I had to go through it entirely to make sure the exercise would be link to the course.

5. As I said earlier, not really. You can consider technically yes, as a lot of my knowledge came from my undergrad rather than my PhD which was way more specific. But I was familiar with everything.

6. No.

7. Not in London, but I definitely did more TA than most of the other PhD due to the cost of life and to repay my loan. It did help substantially, but I also "lost" a lot of time for my PhD.

8. How to make very long lectures interesting? / How to make tutorials more interesting
   That should be a question by itself to be honest (like maybe some other as well). It's hard to grab students attention if they don't want to listen. I always make sure to explain things in two different ways, if possible from very different point of views. Using concrete examples is very useful. Same for metaphorical example. Get familiar with the material you have and make sure what the lecturer want you to present. For example if there's a slide you find hard to understand/explain, you can ask them to modify it, or add more details. If they don't, you will have to make sure you explain it properly. On the opposite hand, if a slide covers something you find trivial, you still need to explain it. The slide is here for a reason.

More generally: Teaching while doing a PhD