Online teaching assistants from Instructional Connections can be hugely helpful for your online courses – and we’ve been doing this long before COVID-19 moved many University courses online.
Instructional Connections built a model of flexibility and customization by providing support for the online course and curriculum needs of our University partners through the use of our online teaching assistants.
Our online teaching assistants give your faculty more time to focus on student success! Through our innovative model, we are able to provide the highest flexibility for your faculty, as our online teaching assistants perform varied duties depending on your distance course needs.
But our high levels of customization often lead to questions about our services, such as what an online teaching assistant can do, what their duties are, how they can help transform an online course, and how our online teaching assistants can best help remote learning environments and student success.
What is an Online Teaching Assistant?
An online teaching assistant is meant to aid the faculty member of record, or professor, that is teaching an online course. This gives your faculty the time to focus on student success, engagement, and course delivery.
Additional responsibilities include any course issues as defined by your faculty or any needs that relate to online and distance learning. Our online teaching assistants are flexible – so your faculty member simply needs to provide us with instructions on their needs and expectations for the course, and our online teaching assistants deliver.
What Our Online Teaching Assistants Do: Duties, Roles, & Responsibilities
- Our online teaching assistants will complete any inter-rater reliability activities that are prescribed by your faculty. This ensures that that the TAs grade to the faculty’s standards and expectations.
- Our online teaching assistants are able to grade assignments per a detailed rubric and faculty direction. Our TAs grade materials with substantial feedback and return them within 72 hours of the due date. This means no more waiting for grades and no rushed grading for your faculty or missed deadlines for online submissions of graded assignments.
- Our online teaching assistants may monitor and participate in asynchronous discussion threads per the discretion and direction of your faculty. They will facilitate conversations, answer questions, and help the students discuss deeper into the subject matter. For many online courses that are largely writing and discussion-based, our online teaching assistants are invaluable! Our TAs save your faculty time while helping students understand the material.
- Our online teaching assistants will answer and respond to all inquiries, emails, messages, and calls within 24 hours, seven 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 be left unanswered for more than 24 hours, even on weekends.
- Our online teaching assistants actively participate in weekly faculty and online teaching assistant conference calls. That way, they may review the faculty’s expectations, grading, rubrics, failing or at-risk students. This also allows for discussing any issues in the class, scheduling, or upcoming needs and assignments.
- Finally, our online teaching assistants maintain compliance with all university policies and regulations, including FERPA.
Our Online TAs Are Tremendous Resources to Students in Their Related Field…
Under the leadership and direction of your faculty, our online teaching assistants may assist with grading, management of discussion threads, approved announcements, and day-to-day tasks. Additional responsibilities may include course issues related to distance learning, as well.
Plus, each of our online teaching assistants is a highly qualified, experienced professional in the appropriate academic discipline. Each and every one has earned at least a Master’s degree. Each teaching assistant also, has 14 years of industry experience in their field of instruction.
This means our online teaching assistants possess the academic credentials and the experience to become an immediate asset to your faculty and students.
