Teaching Assistant Orientation

TA Requirements You must take 12 hours per semester (except you may take 9 hours during the semester you take a required ESL course). You must not make any grades below a "B". You must complete and pass the T.A. Workshop and International Students must complete and pass the ITA Workshop.

English Requirement for International Students to Become Teaching Assistants Please note the following departmental prerequisite for Teaching Assistants. You must take ESL5323, Academic Research and Writing (3 hours). The focus of the course is on improving the ability of second language speakers to compose documents, reports and research papers in English. Component Goals and Objectives: Students will: Become familiar with the mechanics and formats of formal writing Learn the technical aspects of organizing and composing research papers Develop sentence structure and writing skills Practice critical reading Become familiar with the resources in the library You may want to sign up for the course this semester, not only because it may be another step towards becoming a Teaching Assistant, but also because it will help you in many other ways, e.g., in writing papers for courses, submitting papers to journals, or for writing a thesis or dissertation.

English Grammar Helps Why do engineers need to know English grammar? 1.You need to use correct English grammar. 2.Your students need to use correct English grammar. Resources Available: 1.The English Class Requirement 2.ECE Writing Resource Center 3.Online Technical Writing Center Guidelines munications_program/tcp/otwc_guidelines.php

OfficeCourse Name Telephone S-132ECE-4743DSD/CAD S-202ECE-Circuits S-205ECE-3414Energy Systems S-308ECE-3714Digital Devices S-311ECE-45x2Senior Design S-323ECE-3254Electronics II & Design S-403ECE-Electronics S-433ECE-3324Electromagnetics TA Offices and Telephone No.s

Parts Kits Procedures The TA will go to the shop (Room 309) and sign for enough parts kits for his/her labs. Notice that you are signing for money. The TA will provide the kits to the students and receive cash only from the students. The TA will return the collected cash and unsold parts kits to Bill Chapman. (The kits+Dollars given to Bill must equal the amount signed for in the shop.) The IEEE student chapter will sell breadboards and wiring kits. If your lab needs them, your students should purchase them from the IEEE members.

Standard Procedures You must use the syllabus created by the Lab Coordinator for your lab. Your syllabus should contain: –Your Name –Office Location – Address –Office Hours –Other Contact Information –URL of Lab Coordinator's Lab Manual

Standard Procedures (continued) You must use Electronic Grading You must deduct 15 points per day for work turned in late, and give no credit for work turned in 1 week or more late. You must use Class Alias for communicating with your students. Attendance in a Lab by a student is a necessary prerequisite to his or her receiving a grade for that lab, even if the student is taking the course over again. Students may not just turn in a written report. They must do the lab and receive your check-off.

Class Alias At the beginning of each semester, aliases are created for each class being offered that semester. By default, all sent to these addresses go to the student's MSU account. An address is created for the whole class, and addresses are created for each section of the class. Examples for class ECE1002: Class Section 1:

Class Alias (cont.) These addresses can also be used by TAs to send s to their particular lab section. All sent to the class aliases is archived. sent to class sections is also archived in the main class archive so students do not have to look up each section individually. A listing of all archived can be found at: An archive link is also included on each course page. Be sure to visit and check out the mailing list for the class you teach. You should also subscribe yourself to the list. You may want to have your students check that they are also on the list, but they should automatically be subscribed. Report any mailing list problems to Michael Lane at

Other Issues Graduate Assistant Handbook Faculty Handbook oProfessional Ethics oSexual Harassment Diversity Issues Issues Affecting Women

Daily Duties See: