Tutorial Time Management – Planning your Tutorial
Timesaving starts with planning ahead!
Before you Plan:
Planning ahead helps you to deal with unforeseen changes, questions, and challenges. It also helps with your personal time management by cutting down on the number of outside-of-class-time requests for information and clarification.
- Review the assigned material (even if you’ve taught the material before). Work through any problem sets to find possible stumbling blocks.
- Estimate the time each task will take (and be prepared to find out that your estimate is low!)
- Be aware of course objectives, not just class objectives. Longer-term planning allows you to make connections between material across weeks. It also lets you see where there are ‘lighter’ times in the course
- Consider Learning Outcomes: Create your learning outcomes by considering the time you have to get through your material. Are you attempting to do too much?
Writing the lesson plan
- Develop a Tutorial Outline: Use subheadings and time-markers to organize the flow of your tutorial
- In selecting tutorial topics and activities, assess:
1. what your students already know,
2. the time available
3. the number of tasks/topics that need to be covered. - Keep the classroom dynamic in mind. Do the students enjoy discussions (allow more time)? Do some students avoid participating in discussion? (try written alternatives, e.g. 1-minute-essays)
- Prioritize your key topics and tasks.
- Manage Activity length: Consider implementing shorter or segmented tasks. Provide clear time limits and a clear plan for students to follow. Make instructions accessible and visible during entire activity.
- Be aware of hidden time demands. Such as,
- administrative issues
- explanation of test procedures or assignments
- questions from lectures
- setting up technology
- rearranging the room
- Practice/Rehearse: Can this be accomplished in the time allotted? Test different styles, for example: Scripted talks, jot notes, collaborative learning, notes, slides. What works best for you?
During each class
- Define your objectives!
- And try to remain focused on them!
- Become comfortable with adapting in the moment.
- You will rarely cover everything that you have planned!
- Try to “Get out of the way”.
- Recognize when students can take the lead.
- Always keep an eye on the clock!
- Keep Notes/Records
- This will assist in future teaching and is needed for compiling a Teaching Dossier.
Reflecting on Tutorial Time Management
Reflecting on your tutorial time management will help you to improve your teaching, and to save time in planning in the future.
What if I run out of time for planning?
- Liaise with your CI: What do they need you to cover in tutorial? What are the main concepts, ideas, etc. they would like you to address?
- Refer to Your DDAH Form: How much time have you been allotted for prep work? Know your bou
Time-Saving Strategies While Grading – Before You Mark
Helpful tips to make the grading process run smoothly and efficiently.
Establish Expectations
With the professor/course instructor and other teaching assistants
- Determine the grading criteria: Ask your course instructor for guidelines to use while evaluating student work. Guidance in the form of a set marking scheme with specific requirements is vital for both students and teaching assistants. (Can link to the Effective Rubric Design resource here). If you are not the sole grader for the course, it is important for you and your fellow teaching assistants to ensure that everyone is grading based on the same criteria. In large courses with many teaching assistants, consistency is critically important because students will talk to each other.
- Be aware of course policies: Ensure that all teaching assistants follow the same course procedures for late assignments and questionable assignments. Clarify how to handle problematic assignments by asking your course instructor questions such as:
- What is the course policy on late assignments?
- What are the available options for assignments that do not follow formatting guidelines?
- How do you proceed in cases of suspected academic dishonesty?
- What is the course policy on re-grading? The possibility of re-grading assignments must be cleared by the course supervisor and supported by all teaching assistants grading for the same course.
With your students
- Share the grading criteria: Make sure your students are aware of the criteria you’re using. If possible, give them a copy of any rubric you are using to mark their assignments.
- Explain what constitutes a good assignment: Be as specific as possible with them about what constitutes an ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, or ‘D’ assignment. If possible, show them a sample of a well-executed assignment. Take up common errors with the class if relevant.
- Clarify the basic requirements of the assignment: Avoid misunderstandings by specifying:
- Formatting guidelines and length requirements (including penalties for not following them)
- Referencing (including what citation style is required)
- Late penalties and academic honesty policies
- Explain the re-marking policy: Make your students aware of the process for re-marking assignments or appealing grades (with you as their marker, not at the department level—never suggest to students that they formally appeal their grades!). Remember to discuss:
- Possible outcomes: Their grade could be raised, remain the same, or be lowered.
- Requirements for re-grading: Many instructors require students to submit a written justification of why their mark should be reconsidered. In these instances, students must identify what portions of their assignments deserve a second look and must articulate clearly in writing their reasons for requesting a second look.
While Assignments are in Progress
Communicate with your students throughout the process
- Discuss the assignment details in class: Factor in additional time to discuss the assignment in tutorial or lab in the weeks prior to the due date, particularly if you are teaching lower-year students or if the assignment type is unfamiliar to students. Refer to the points of discussion under ‘With your students’ above.
- Link course learning objectives to assignment learning objectives: Ensure you make the necessary connections between the course objectives and course material and the assignments. This can serve a dual purpose (deepening students’ understanding of the material and giving them inspiration for the assignment).
- Provide time for questions: Always allow time in class for students to ask questions related to their assignments. Encourage those questions by asking students about their progress on a regular basis in class; it helps them understand that sharing questions with the group can be beneficial for everyone.
- Encourage students to use your office hours: One-on-one time can be invaluable to them in their researching or writing process.
- If a student is having difficulty organizing their assignment, ask them to write down their major points. Encourage them to notice which points seem more significant than others, and which follow from others. Ask them what makes their argument or result important or interesting, and what that implies.
- Encourage engagement with you during the process: If it is feasible with your workload, encourage students to show you outlines or drafts. Though this may be time-consuming, it will make your grading easier, and help your students to develop good work habits.
- Direct students to resources: If students require specialized assistance with writing or time management skills, direct them to their college writing lab or learning skills centre.
Time-Saving Strategies While Grading — While You Mark
General Time-Saving Strategies
- Start grading early: Juggling the multiple deadlines and responsibilities that come with a TA role requires excellent note-taking habits. Try keeping track of deadlines using an agenda or planner, or by setting reminders in your calendar app of choice. Start grading early so that your work is finished well before the deadline!
- Use a rubric or marking key: Rubrics speed up the grading process by permitting you to identify and evaluate specific components of each assignment based on a set of objective criteria. A marking key also provides the advantages of promoting consistency in your marking, communicating expectations to students, and providing space for feedback.
- Enter grades as you go: Save and track your progress as you grade by entering marks on Quercus after each grading session. Quercus offers a tool called SpeedGrader that allows you to grade assignments within your web browser. With SpeedGrader, you can view and annotate submissions, assign grades, or use a virtual rubric. Remember to keep grades hidden until you have finished marking all your students and have checked with the course instructor.
- Grade in batches: Concentrate on one question at a time to keep the criteria for that specific question fresh in your mind. This strategy allows you to divide the grading into manageable chunks while reducing the likelihood of grading discrepancies that result from interruptions. You can dedicate time to grading in short bursts and ensure your grading aligns with the established criteria.
Assignment-Specific Time-Saving Strategies
Strategies for written assignments
- Prioritize areas for feedback: Figure out the key elements to focus on and provide targeted feedback. Limit the amount of feedback you provide students so as not to overwhelm them. Instead, focus on general issues and highlight concrete examples in the assignment text. Consider using marginal comments for more specific feedback and summative comments to make more general remarks.
- Use comment banks: Consider using comment banks or other feedback templates to quickly insert commonly used comments and avoid retyping them for each student. This will help to standardize your feedback and maintain fairness in your grading. You can still customize or personalize your comments to fit individual students’ needs. Comment banks can also promote consistency between teaching assistants if they are used as a shared resource.
- Take up common issues: If you notice the same errors coming up for multiple students, consider taking them up with your students in tutorial or in the laboratory.This will allow you to address the issue just once and provides students the opportunity to ask clarifying questions.
- Benchmark: For courses with multiple TAs, schedule a benchmarking session before you start grading. During benchmarking, TAs and course instructors go over a few examples of student assignments and assess them as a group. The goal of benchmarking is to align grading standards for the whole group and to help get your grading started on the right track!
Strategies for problem sets, midterms, or exams:
- Devise template solutions: Create or source solutions for assignment problems that you can refer to while grading. This will allow you to spend less time evaluating each response, and instead compare them to a predefined standard.
- Explore automated grading options: Make use of automatic grading tools for simple question styles. Many midterms and exams use scantrons to automatically grade multiple choice and true or false questions. Quercus also allows for the automated grading of quizzes assigned using the platform.
- Implement peer review: For low stakes assignments, have students swap their answers and grade each other to promote collaborative learning and reduce some of the grading load on yourself.
Time-Saving Strategies While Grading – After you Mark
By reflecting on your grading practice, you can discover strategies for improving your students’ learning experience. Take a few minutes to record a voice memo, journal, or joint down a few notes. Some questions you might consider include:
- What went well?
- What was a challenge?
- Were there questions or instructions that the student found confusing and slowed down marking?
- What adjustments should I make in the future?
- Could a rubric be developed for this task?
- Could I use student self-assessment for this task?
- Is this task overly complicated to assess?
- Record your reflections in a notebook or document for future reference.
- Find the medium that works best for you and make this reflective practice a habit.
