Supervising sessionally employed teaching staff

Increasingly topic coordinators are called upon to co-teach with a group of casually employed tutors and demonstrators in order to ensure that students get adequate interaction in their classes. These tutors, or sessionally employed teachers, are often Higher Degree students who are teaching for the first time and need guidance to learn appropriate teaching strategies and to clarify their understanding of the topic's core learning intentions.

A booklet, Starting off as a Tutor at Flinders University (PDF 388KB) has been prepared to support sessionally employed teachers. This is also available from the Staff Development and Training Unit in hard copy for you to distribute to sessionally employed teachers.

This web page offers guidelines for managing and supervising sessionally employed teaching staff in the following areas:

• Tips to being a good mentor to a sessionally employed teaching assistant
• Administration issues in terms of employment
• Establishing teaching roles and responsibilities
• Teaching and learning issues

Tips to being a good mentor to a sessionally employed teaching assistant

• Reasonably pace your teaching and advising. Remember that you didn't learn everything at once or the first time through.

• Be aware that sessionally employed teachers are probably unfamiliar with various university and department regulations, office procedures, routine deadlines, and endless other professional protocols that are now second nature to you. Remember to convey this information EXPLICITLY.

• Give fair, encouraging feedback on sessionally employed teacher's job performance on a regular basis. Critical remarks can evoke a defensive, even fearful reaction. Couch them in terms of ways to improve and expectation for future success.

• Maintain regular, weekly meetings with sessionally employed teaching staff, even if you are lucky enough to have all experienced staff for a particular course. Holding these meetings demonstrates your commitment to teaching excellence and staff morale.

• Cultivate an environment where temporary lapses and setbacks a, fears and failures can be shared, forgiven, overcome and filed away as learning experiences.

• Resist the temptation to mold sessionally employed teachers into your clones. They must find and explore their own potential.

• Review your relationship occasionally. The relationship is designed to self-destruct as the sessionally employed teacher moves to becoming a colleague rather than an assistant. Talking about emerging stresses informally can resolve them.

Administration issues and paperwork

Check that the following procedures have occurred.

Signing on

Have the following forms been completed?

• Employment forms
• Tax Declaration form

Reporting relationships

Casual academic staff are responsible to the Head of a designated academic organisational unit (AOU) and are assigned responsibilities by the Head. Direct day-to-day duties are usually assigned by the Topic Coordinator.

Pay and timesheets

• completion dates
• establish who is the signatory
• ensure that the appropriate pay level is assigned in terms of work
• submission details.

Definition of duties and salary payment codes

The description of duties able to be undertaken by casual academic staff is listed in the CASUAL EMPLOYMENT FORM (Academic) form available from the HR Forms webpage. The associated salary pay codes are also listed.

Conditions of employment

Issues to address could include: is time for assessment and consultation built into payments for tutorials or paid separately?

General organisational matters

Make sure that sessionally employed teaching staff know about:

• times and locations of classes, numbers in classes
• how to access teaching resources
• who the other members of the department are
• how to access stationery
• how to complete records of attendance
• where to find topic guides and what are the recommended reading materials and text books
• how to use assessment sheets, mark sheets or student feedback forms
• consultative committee information
• health and safety information
• space availability
• email lists
• sessionally employed teachers out-of-hours access to buildings or labs
• the pigeonhole or message area
• meeting times
• how to get a library card
• equal opportunity policies
• student with disabilities policies.

Professional development

Sessionally employed teaching staff may be required to participate in training workshops facilitated by the Staff Development and Training Unit.

The details of the program are available at the sessional tutor training web page. You will have to budget for pay at OD1 Rate for each hour of training required. Refer to the salary scales web page for salary scales information.

Make sessionally employed teachers aware of the workshops offered by the Staff Training and Development Unit on:

• group management skills
• demonstrating and explaining
• managing tutorials
• managing difficult situations
• assessing student learning, amongst others.

Alternatively, email staff.development@flinders.edu.au to arrange for some of these workshops to be held for your sessionally employed teachers as a group and with your input.

Establishing teaching roles and responsibilities

Early teaching assignments allow time for academics and sessionally employed teachers to discuss the course and their mutual responsibilities as well as to prepare to meet them. This time is crucial for first-time sessionally employed teachers and for experienced teachers taking on new assignments. Establish firmly the roles that you and your sessional employed teaching staff will play.

Responsibility issues

When allocating course duties, try to divide tasks fairly, equitably, and efficiently.

Possible responsibilities:

• assisting in course preparation
• preparing and/or instructing in laboratories
• leading discussions
• conducting or helping to conduct review sessions
• attending lectures
• giving guest lecturing
• taking roll
• assisting in assignment and test preparation
• being available during tests
• grading and calculating grades
• holding office hours.

Possible academic responsibilities:

• supervising and participating in test construction
• advising sessionally employed teaching staff on discussion section or laboratory content and methods
• coaching them in presentation and teaching skills
• providing them with feedback on their teaching effectiveness
• scheduling and directing sessionally employed teaching staff meetings
• ensuring the sessionally employed teaching staff have whatever supplies they need.

Teaching and learning issues

Outline your expectations with regard to the learning outcomes of the topic and tutorials. Give sessionally employed teachers some ideas for the workshops, such as:

• meeting with students
• icebreakers
• time and resource organisation.

Clarify the role of tutorials with regard to lectures, for example, establish:

• how the lectures fit into the course
• whether the tutorials act as preparation or follow up from the lectures
• the links between lectures and tutorials.

Assessment

Ensure that sessionally employed teaching staff:

• know how to discuss proposed assessment with students
• understand the assessment guidelines as they are intended
• interpret the models of assessment tasks
• understand the written marking guidelines for sessionally employed teachers
• have access to worked examples, the good and not so good student submissions
• understand what the average student needs to achieve to get through the required material
• understand the department's attitude to due dates and late work
• know the time frame and method of handing back work
• know what is expected about assessment records, where they are kept, and what is the expected format.

Tutor/Student interaction

This role may be the first time that a tutor will act in a supervisory role. They may need to be advised of rules of conduct.

Make sure you advise :

• what is expected in terms of consultation times for sessionally employed teachers and students
• how to refer students to support resources such as Student Counseling or Study Skills. (References to exact referral procedures and contacts are contained in the Sessionally Employed Teacher's booklet)
• to respect confidentially by refraining from discussing private matters of students with other sessionally employed teaching staff
  
• to refrain from criticizing you when talking to students
• to treat students with respect and to treat them fairly and equally, despite personal feelings about particular individuals
• to be careful about touching a student or closing an office door when only you and the student are present in the office
• to refrain from conducting close personal relationships with members of the class.

Employing international sessionally employed teachers

Sessionally employed teaching staff from cultures other than Australian bring different perspectives and backgrounds which can add a lot to a course. However, they may also bring culturally related problems such as communication difficulties and possible misunderstandings in the roles of students and teacher. They often arrive with assumptions about students, teachers and the classroom environment in general. You can ward off potential problems by correcting misunderstandings early in the semester. Most of these misunderstandings can be corrected by raising awareness of the differences and discussing methods of adapting to them

Common misconceptions include:

• The educational background of the student body will be standardised: this is particularly true of people who come from a standard national curriculum background who may not prepared for the wide range of abilities and levels of motivation characteristic of our undergraduate classes.
• The instructor is an absolute authority figure who should not be questioned: There may be a lack of familiarity with the process of actively involving students in the learning process and in providing specific and frequent feedback. They may initially perceive the right of an undergraduate to question that process as disrespectful, if unprepared for it to happen.
• The learning environment is a formal setting:Many sessionally employed teachers might not be familiar with the informality of the Australian classroom. They may not be prepared for students who arrive late for class, wear inappropriate dress, talk or eat in class, etc.