[another_anon]

What prevents TA's from teaching more than 1 or 2 discussion sections? If each of them taught 2~3 discussions, wouldn't everyone be happier? As students, it would be nice to know how the TA hours are managed. TA's earn a lot of money for teaching. Does a 20-hr TA do 2 hours of discussion, 1 hour of office hour, 1 hour of discussion prep, 1 hour of making homework, etc? How does it add up to 20 hours? Do they have to redesign the entire class and grade homework problems? If necessary, can they take one more hour of discussion from one of the other responsibilities? It would be great if the teaching staff is clearer and more open about this.

[dougtygar]

Another_anon -- that's a great question, but I cannot answer personnel questions in a public forum -- if you want to drop by 739 Soda, I'll be happy to try to answer your question.

Our course has what Berkeley EECS calls "30 hours of TAs." I can assure you that they'll end up doing a lot more than 30 hours worth of work each week.

I'll also remind you that our teaching assistants are unionized, and we are bound by contract rules.

But even if I had the power to change that (and I do not), you can see that it would have to change for every single EECS class -- why would a TA want to teach 4 discussion sections for CS 161 when s/he could get the same pay credit teaching 2 discussions sections for another CS class?

[cycomachead]

I don't know how much I can say, but 1 section of any class is 10 hours of TA paid time. Period. Doesn't matter if you work less or more.

Though, often times, most TA's I know put in far more than their required time.