Spring 2021 Survey on Graduate Teaching Assistant Support
We surveyed all NIU graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) during spring 2021 about their teaching and teaching with technology support needs, with the goal of learning what programs, services, resources and recognition they found most useful. 1,040 GTAs were invited to participate in the survey and 296 responded, for a response rate of 28%. The following disaggregated summary can be filtered by college or department.
Additional Feedback
GTA Workload/Balance, Time Management
Working with supervising professor
Dealing with difficult students
Culturally Sensitive Teaching; Inclusive Teaching
Community Building
Learning through Failure
STEM Online Teaching
Improved Teaching Effectiveness
Teaching with Technology
Grading Strategies; Assessing Student Work; Providing Feedback; Rubrics
Student Engagement Strategies; Increasing Student Engagement; Interacting with Students
Increasing Blackboard Proficiency
Online Group Work
Synchronous Online Sessions
Content Creation/Curation; Video Creation
Course Design
Providing Student Support
Syllabus Design and Creation
Lecture Best Practices
High Impact Practices
Ensuring Academic Honesty
Subject-Specific Teaching Strategies
Communicating with Students
Developing Student Research
Career development; Career Planning
Mentorships
Diversity and Social Justice
Leadership
Security and Privacy
Unionization
Stress Management
Dissertation
Substance Abuse
“I would love to have much clearer guidelines and expectations from my department in terms of how I can be effective and help the students reach their highest potential.”
“Thanks for your work in trying to improve the work of educators at NIU.”
“Somehow a bit more push to join workshops. I've had many TAs in my department complain about lack of training but have not attended any workshops. Pedagogy workshops would be especially effective. Maybe a push for department heads or supervisors to recommend attending?”
“I hope there will be more activities for international students."
“It was a very useful experience for me teaching as a GTA. I hope to keep working as a GTA with my department."