Online teaching assistants from Instructional Connections, or our online TAs, are hugely helpful for a multitude of distance learning and online course tasks, however, their responsibilities can vary greatly due to the course and curriculum needs.
As one of the most common questions that Instructional Connections gets from the Universities we support, we wanted to provide in-depth content about what our virtual teaching assistants do, their responsibilities, and how their roles can help your remote learning thrive.
What Can an Online TA Do?
Instructional Connections strives to help your online programs succeed by assisting your staff and enhancing student success and retention with our online teaching assistants or academic coaches. We do that in a variety of ways:
- Our virtual TAs can complete any inter-rater reliability activities that are prescribed by your faculty. This ensures that grading is completed to the faculty’s standards and expectations.
- Our online TAs are able to grade assignments per a detailed rubric and faculty direction. Additionally, graded materials with substantial feedback are completed and returned within 72 hours of the due date – which means no more waiting for grades, and no more rushed grading for your faculty.
- Our online teaching assistants can also monitor and participate in asynchronous discussion threads per the direction of your faculty, facilitating conversations, answering questions, and helping the students discuss deeper into the subject matter. For many online courses which are largely writing and discussion based, our online teaching assistants are invaluable and able to save your faculty time, while improving student understanding and course outcomes.
- Our virtual teaching assistant or academic coaches are able to answer and respond to all inquiries, emails, messages, and calls within 24 hours, 7 days a week. Even if their answer is to simply let the student know that they will have to perform their own research or consult with the faculty. No correspondence will ever be left unattended or unanswered for more than 24 hours, even on weekends. This, again, frees up your faculty to focus on teaching, not answering questions about an assignment the night before it is due.
- Our online academic coaches actively participate in weekly faculty and academic coach/teaching assistant conference calls so that they may review the faculty’s expectations, grading, rubrics, failing or at-risk students, and discuss any issues in the class, scheduling, or upcoming needs and assignments. Clear communication is one of the pillars of Instructional Connections, which is why we always make sure to have constant contact between your faculty and our online teaching assistants throughout the course and semester.
- Finally, our virtual TAs maintain compliance with all university policies and regulations, including FERPA.
Ultimately, our online teaching assistant can help your faculty of record with grading, discussion threads, communicating with students, answering questions, and handling many other day-to-day issues. This allows your faculty to focus on the big picture – like the success of the classroom.
The specific assistance that each virtual TA will provide is based on the directions given by University faculty, the needs of the course, and the curriculum. This allows each online academic coach to support your faculty in the most efficient and relevant way for each unique, online course.
We believe in a personalized approach, and delivering the assistance that each program needs, based on the instructions from the faculty of record. Along with course-specific responsibilities, Instructional Connections’ virtual TAs strive to provide clear communication and superior service to each of our faculty partners.
Can an Online TA Help Your Distance Learning Program?
With distance learning becoming a real possibility for many University students this Fall, and maybe beyond, consider the benefits of utilizing an academic coach from Instructional Connections early, so we can find the perfect match for your courses and needs.
