Establish principles to guide your work with your TAs, for example:
Teaching Team: GAAs, GTAs, and UTAs are part of the teaching team, representing a united front with the course instructor and sometimes at the departmental level.
Teaching Presence: We are here to support the learning of our students, while playing different roles.
Mentoring and Communication: GAAs, GTAs, and UTAs are learners too. They need support and mentoring from course instructors.
Honour the Collective Agreement.
Communication is critical - communication with your TAs is always important, but it’s particularly so when you move to online teaching. You won’t have the opportunity to ‘run into’ your TA in the hall and have a quick chat about your course. Frequent, consistent, and intentional communication with your TAs will help set you, them, and your students up for success. If applicable consider scheduling a bi-weekly check-ins with your TAs, perhaps through a short online meeting or emails.
Carefully consider time - teaching and learning online may require more time, so you may need to re-think how you allocate your TAs’ hours. Use a TA contract as a tool to facilitate an agreement on how your TA should distribute their time, and be prepared to adjust expectations and the allocation of contract hours if planned tasks take longer or shorter than expected.
Invest in TA training - investing time in TA training can help your TAs be more efficient and effective in the online environment.
Support your TAs’ wellbeing - cultivate a sense of community, humanity and collaboration between you and TAs. This can help with social and emotional challenges your TAs may be experiencing (working in distance) and your example of being a considerate instructor may transfer to your TAs’ interactions with students in the course.