<p>a friend of mine told me that his son goes to UF and there are teachers assistants teaching some of the classes?? Is anyone aware of this? and what gives on this.
Thats all I know. I don't know how widespread this is but ??? is this common?</p>
<p>Rarely happens. The only time it happened for me was in Theater Appreciation, which is a very large class that most take just to get the gen elective credits. My friend had an anthro class (another very large into to intro course) taught by a TA. Also they’re considered instructors, not TAs, if they are the main person for the course. TA’s facilitate the small group sessions. I think once they had a PhD student teach a summer physics course. For what its worth, my physics TA was far better than the professor at teaching the concepts. Some professors just see teaching as an obligation of their jobs and would much prefer being in their offices writing grant proposals.</p>
<p>…also there was a PhD student (at the time he was about to finish) that became the instructor for a calc 2 section. Amazing teacher and that’s why he was about to get the position.</p>
<p>He may be talking about discussion sessions for classes like chemistry and calculus. If that is the case, it is very common (practically normal) for TAs to teach those parts. If we are talking about the actual lectures, it is probably not that big of a deal to worry about. If they are teaching the class, it is for a reason, probably mainly being they know what they are doing.</p>
<p>Many years ago when I was at I took a master’s level statistics class taught by a TA. He was better than many of the teachers I had during the three years prior as an undergrad. Personally, I feel if the TA is good it doesn’t matter, but what matters is that there are avenues for students to get academic help if needed in a class, like tutoring or study groups.</p>
<p>Forgot, I spoke with a former student yesterday who is a freshman at UF. He said he loves it but when I asked if it was for the social or the academics, he smiled and said the social. He is a smart kid who doesn’t need coddling in class so he is doing well, but he was surprised at how he feels that no one cares if a student is doing well. As an example, he told me that in his Chemistry I class students all around him are failing and the class just keeps going on. Now he is making A’s but was surprised how different it is than high school, even though I told him along with his classmates that in college they are held to higher standards and if they don’t cut it there are plenty of kids willing to take their place. Basically I tell my students that the colleges get your money at the beginning of the semester, not the end. Anyway, my former student says that the chemistry class appears to be a weed-out class and he heard Chemistry II is also. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask, if he was being taught by a professor or a TA.</p>
<p>My daughter started this Summer B. She had a TA for Intro to Chemistry and ended up dropping the class. Now she has CGS 2531, the computer class for all Business majors. All the sections assigned to Bermudez have TAs. Both TAs that she has had have severely lacked the communication and technical skills to be a good instructors.</p>
<p>It is assuring to hear that it’s not all that common other than labs.</p>
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<p>For chem 1 and 2, its always going to be a professor or senior lecturer.</p>
<p>The only class I had a TA for was technical writing (and of course labs). The use of TA’s is common at any research university, so I wouldn’t hold it against UF in particular. They need to fund graduate students somehow, and not all departments can rely on research grants to fund everyone.</p>