About the TA Mentor Program

From the EDC Website:

TA Mentors play an important role in creating a sense of community amongst TAs and providing them with the support and training necessary so that they may successfully fulfill their roles. This year’s group of TA Mentors have demonstrated strong communication, interpersonal and organizational skills, and are approachable and interested in helping others. They will be on hand at departmental TA orientations, and will be offering workshops and social events (grading pizza evenings, venting coffee hours, etc.) for TAs in their departments throughout the academic year.

Check out the FAQ's for TA's posted by the EDC.

Nominate a TA for this year's TA Excellence Award.

You can contact your TA Mentor Gail Carmichael at compsciTAmentor AT carleton.ca.

Workshops

Careers in Academia

Thursday March 24 2011
2:00pm
HP 4351

Associate Dean of Research Jit Bose and SCS Director Doug Howe will be present to answer your questions about the current state of academia for computer science, what the different kinds of positions are, and how to best prepare for a career in academia.

EDC Workshops

Check out the schedule of all EDC workshops in the Fall 2010 TA Talk Newsletter. Register for EDC workshops here. Learn about the Certificate in Teaching Assistant Skills here.

Past Workshops

• Communication and Presentation Skills
  • Download the document with notes from the workshop as well as other resources
• Preparing a Tutorial or Lecture
• No notes or slides, since it was a panel
• EDC TA Day
• I heard slides will be made available... not sure when...
• Teaching During Office Hours
  • Download the slides with notes.
  • Download last year's Effective Office Hours slides.
• Assessment: Creating Assignments, Grading Consistently
• Download the articles about grading and assessment in the workshop.
  Download the questions asked in the workshop.
• Download last year's Grading slides.
• Handling Difficult Situations
• Download the slides with notes.

Social Events

Pizza Lunch

January 10 @ 11:30am
5115 HP
RSVP by midnight Jan 8

Sports

Details TBA

News

February 2011 Issue of TA Talk Available Now

Announcing the 2010-2011 TA Excellence Award

The award nomination is officially available.  Nominate a great TA from Summer 2010, Fall 2010, or Winter 2011 online by March 15 2011.

Welcome 2010-2011 TA's!

This website will be the main repository of information and slides from workshops (no need for WebCT). Much of our communication will be on the mailing list all TA's should be subscribed to. If you have not received any messages from the list yet, please email me at compsciTAmentor AT carleton.ca.

2009-2010 TA Excellence Award Results

On behalf of the Selection Committee I am very pleased to announce that Matthew Eastman and Petro Verkhogliad are the recipients of the School of Computer Science Teaching Assistant Excellence Award for the 2009-2010 academic year.    Petro is in the M.C.S. degree program and Matthew is a B.C.S. student.

All the Computer Science teaching assistants who were nominated this year had strong profiles, making the final decision difficult.   The committee was unable to prioritize one candidate over the other, and so took the unusual step of making a joint award. 

Many congratulations not only to the two winners of this year’s award, but to all of the teaching assistants for jobs very well done!