Common Teaching Problems:
Strategies for Graduate Student Instructors
How to Work Effectively with Your Supervising Professor
TAs typically juggle many roles in concurrently being students as well as teachers. If you experience the added stress of dealing with a difficult supervisor, the normal stress can become tremendous. So, what steps can you take to establish and maintain a positive relationship with your supervisor?
- Plan to meet with your professor as soon as you have your assignment. Go out of your way to initiate this meeting because it may be the most important meeting you have of the whole semester. At this time you should strive to learn as precisely as possible the expectations for the job. Take a copy of the Job Duties Checklist (pdf) to assist in spelling out the expectations.
- This is also a good time to help your professor learn about your skills and your situation. Share this information both early and as the semester goes along in order to keep communication open.
- If conflicts arise, first seek to understand and then, to be understood. Before you assume there's a problem, determine if adequate communication has occurred. Seek or provide information and clarification.
- Be flexible. If you occasionally are asked to work a few extra hours, don't be too concerned. If these demands become habitual, then you need to point this out to your supervisor.
- Keep conflicts or misunderstandings from getting out of control. Acknowledge your concerns and talk them out to a trusted friend, but don't make the situation worse than it is. Often stress causes us to make situations worse than they need to be.
- When a conflict needs to be addressed directly with your supervisor, speak assertively. Don't make assumptions, and listen as carefully as you speak. Make sure that both party's opinions and needs are considered equally and a solution is generated that is mutually acceptable.
- If further exploration is needed, or you feel the need to consult with others on how to proceed, consider peers, your departmental graduate coordinator or advisor, or a trusted faculty member.
- Remember that the professor is the instructor of record, and thus is the "go-to" person in case of difficult problems with students, or other conflicts that you aren't able to resolve on your own.
- If these steps prove inadequate, then consider seeking outside resources such as the Office of the Ombudsman and the Employee Assistance Program.