[Bgsa] Keep track of your TA workload!

[Carla Essenberg]

Hi Everyone,

I forgot to check in with you about this at the meeting on Friday, but
do keep track
of your workloads and let me know if it seems like it might be more
than 20 hours a week on average (remembering that the work is often
heavier towards the end of the term because of grading and students
needing help with assignments).  I gather that for many courses the
number of students per TA and in some cases (such as BIOL 5LA and
116) also the number of sections per TA have gone up, so especially if you are
teaching one of those courses, it would really be a good service to
yourselves as well as to future TAs if you tracked your hours to make
sure the workload isn't going over what it should be.

The changes to the numbers of sections and students per TA are coming
from higher
up than our department.  The faculty are also worried about these
changes and at least in some cases, would actually welcome some push
back from us and the union so they can tell the administration they
need more TAships for the courses they are teaching.

You can download a grid to use to figure out how much time you
are likely to need to do all your TA duties at the following site:

http://www.uaw2865.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Workload_Grid1.pdf

If you would like me to help organize meetings with other TAs who are teaching
your course to go through the workload grid and figure out how much time things
are really going to take, I would welcome the opportunity - just let me
know.  This goes especially for people teaching the courses where the
number of students or sections have changed recently.

Cheers,

Carla

-- 
Carla Essenberg
PhD Candidate and UAW Steward
Department of Biology
University of California, Riverside