Many universities have large first-year lecture classes with several hundred students in them. Generally, the professor will deliver the lectures for these classes, and the graduate teaching assistants will lead tutorials that consist of around 20 students. Tutorials give the students an opportunity to discuss what they learned in the lecture and to share ideas. The teaching assistant is responsible for moderating the conversation and trying to engage all of the students equally. The teaching assistant also challenges the students to think about the material in new ways.
Teaching assistants grade exams, assignments, and written papers. These can include anything from multiple-choice exams to lengthy research papers. Grading can often cause tension between the teaching assistant and students who feel that their grades are lower than they deserve, and teaching assistants must be able to deal with these issues with some level of tact and effectiveness. Grading of subjectively interpreted work such as written essays requires superior reading comprehension and the ability to express what is right and wrong with the work, and how it could be improved.
Teaching assistants sometimes proctor exams either in conjunction with or in place of their professors. This job includes distributing and collecting exams, answering student questions, maintaining order and discipline in the exam hall, and dealing with instances of cheating and plagiarism. Exam proctors must be capable of exerting authority over large groups, and dealing with unexpected situations as they arise. A familiarity with the subject matter is also useful in this role, in the event that a student has a question of clarity about any of the questions.
Some teaching assistants work with their professors in research roles. Depending on the field, this could include laboratory work, conducting public polls, doing observational work, or correlating data and processing information. Research placements are more common in scientific fields than in the humanities. Research experience as a graduate is often very useful in acquiring academic validity and employment following completion of a graduate degree.
Graduate assistants gain crucial experience in dealing with students, teaching, and research that will be important in their later careers as academics or researchers. In addition, inclusion of this experience in a CV will make a hiring committee more likely to consider the graduate for a position.