The Committee for the Support of Teaching is considering a policy change that would officially allow undergraduate teaching assistants who receive academic credit for their roles as teaching assistants to grade assignments in a limited capacity, according to a proposal discussed by department chairs March 11. Under the new policy, UTAs would be allowed to grade assignments such as problem sets, multiple-choice questions, true/false questions and short answers but not essays with initial and ongoing supervision by the professor.

The proposal states that appropriate assignments for UTAs to grade are "problem sets that have minimal impact on the total grade, and for which grading standards are clearly specified" as well as "objective test questions that require minimal discretion on partial credit, e.g., multiple choice questions,true false or short answers in which specific points are assigned for specific portions of the correct response."

Currently the official policy holds that UTAs, known as "peer assistants," "may not assign grades for any assignments, but may assist in evaluating work under the close supervision of the faculty instructor," according to the peer assistant registration form.

However, UTAs who either receive academic credit or payment for their work have been grading assignments out of necessity with success in departments such as Biology, Chemistry and Economics in situations where there are too few graduate teaching fellows to manage grading responsibilities, according to the proposal as well as interviews by the Justice with faculty, staff and students.

The new guidelines for undergraduate teaching assistants suggest that instructors meet with prospective UTAs before the start of the semester to make sure that that they have sufficient time to devote to the position.

In addition, it recommends that instructors hand out a memo to UTAs with teaching responsibilities and notes that undergraduates could participate in the same departmental training offered to graduate teaching assistants. The proposal recommends that UTAs and instructors meet regularly during the year to discuss grading in person or confer during the year by posting on LATTE.

When the committee started undertaking a general review of the training and preparation of UTAs this past year, its members realized that "more grading was going on than initially realized," Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Elaine Wong said. She said that before the policy change would become final, it would need to be approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, possibly later this semester.

At the department chairs' meeting at which the proposal was discussed, "Chairs [felt] undergrads should not be grading essays but that they can grade [other assignments] under supervision of faculty," Wong said. "Everyone realizes that faculty ultimately have responsibility for grading."



The proposal states "that the faculty supervisors report that undergraduates are typically their most conscientious and responsible graders, even in comparison with graduate Teaching Fellows." It goes on to state that neither the graders nor the students being graded expressed any discomfort with undergraduates grading other undergraduates. "Potentially difficult situations (e.g. "my roommate's girlfriend is in my section") have been handled by appropriate reassignment of students to other sections."

Among the professors the committee consulted with was Prof. Scott Redenius (ECON). "The ideal person for grading is someone who can make consistent differentiations between quality of work of different students," he said in an interview. "It doesn't strike me that that ability is unique to graduate students."

Rebenius said he has had experience with both undergraduate and graduate TAs. One issue he said he pointed out to the committee is that "it's very useful to have a grading rubric so you can tell the students who are going to be grading what the criteria are."

Prof. Milos Dolnik (CHEM), whom the committee also consulted, said that in some of his larger classes, graduate graders evaluate portions of lab reports that they can correct without having been present in the labs. He explained that he divided grading of the portions relating to lab work between graduate and undergraduate students who are present in the lab during experiments. "Undergrad TAs grade lists of equipments, lists of chemicals, purpose of the lab, observations and procedure," he said, noting that they would do that grading each week the entire semester based on his answer key. "They seem to be doing a great job."

The difference between undergraduate and graduate students, Dolnik said, is in the graduates' experience and their ability to answer more wide-ranging questions. "I try to select a good problem . that I feel the undergrad is able to grade," he said.

Dolnik said he would not necessarily see the sense in having undergraduates grade final exams but that limited grading would be reasonable "if the policy is that the undergraduate can participate in grading with close instructor supervision."

Shilpa Mukunda '10, who served as a UTA in a physiology class last semester, said, "[Prof. Kenneth Hayes (BIOL)] told us at the beginning that we had to be very honest and that he was putting a lot of trust in us."

She added that he gave her and the other UTA a lot of responsibility. "We maintained the class database of all the grades, and we entered the grades ourselves," she said. "A lot of the students in the class were friends and peers. . I always felt weird being able to enter a good friend's grade and knowing that oh, they didn't do well, but it would be wrong to change anything. We were both very honest."

She said the UTAs graded two midterms and the final and with the professor applying the curve at the end. The tasks all had clear right or wrong answers and were not subjective, she said. If students had concerns about the correct answer or wording of quizzes, she said she referred them to the professor.

Mukunda said she felt that professors should talk more with prospective TAs at the beginning of the semester about issues such as grading and honesty. "If they're going to have this as an official policy, maybe there could be a one-day training."

From her own experience in class with different kinds of TAs, she said she would be more likely to go to a graduate TA for more complex questions. She added, though, that unlike many graduate students, undergraduate TAs had taken the class before and been selected because they did well in them.

Mukunda suggested more of an application process for selecting TAs, noting that just having done very well in the course was not necessarily the best criterion for selection.



-Alana Abramson contributed reporting.