Teaching Assistant

What is a teaching assistant?

A teaching assistant (TA) is a person who provides classroom support to the teacher and students. The TA may be assigned tasks such as grading papers, preparing presentations or other assignments, providing academic assistance during lectures or group work sessions, leading discussion groups in class while the instructor observes from another location/sentry point.

Teaching assistants are also sometimes called instructional assistants (IA) or “assistant-in-training”. The type and extent of that assistance may vary depending on the particular school, institution, or system where they work.