CSE/STAT 416 23sp TA Application

This page outlines the process to become a TA for CSE/STAT 416 in 23sp. I am looking forward to reading your application and hopefully getting to work with you in the future!

Note

This page only outlines an extra process to apply to a TA position in CSE/STAT 416 specifically. I recommend you also fill out the general Allen School TA Application to apply to TA for a broader set of classes. You can fill out this application even if you aren't a major in the Allen School as there are many non-major courses we provide that need TAs. Filling out the Allen School application is not required to apply to CSE/STAT 416, but just a recommendation so you can apply to more courses than just ours.

Time Commitments & Duties

TAing is a serious time commitment. TAs work an average of 15-19.5 hours per week. The break down is as follows:

  • Attend class session 3 hours a week: Monday/Wednesday 12:30 - 1:50 pm (CDH 109)
  • Attend staff meeting for 1 hour a week: Wendesdays 4:00 - 5:00 pm or Wednesdays 4:30 - 5:30 (based on staff availability)
  • Host at least 2 hours of Office Hours a week
  • Lead a quiz section for 1 hour a week: Thursdays, scheduled based on your availability and preferences
  • Grade homework assignments including final project: approximately 3-5 hours per week
  • If you haven't been a TA for the Allen School yet: Attend New TA Training for 1 hour a week: Thursdays 4:30 - 5:30 pm
  • General time to prep for meetings and respond to student emails/messages

Compensation

TA positions are paid positions. The starting pay for new undergraduate TAs is $18.69/hr (as of Feb 2023). TAs will receive hourly rate increases based on the number of quarters experience as a TA. For more information, please visit the Undergrad TA Salary Page.

All TAs are protected by the UAW 4121 union (which protects all Student Academic Employees on all three UW campuses.) For more information visit their site at www.uaw4121.org.


Application

This process is not intended to be intense or stressful, but we do note that it is important in order to be offered the teaching position on our team. We generally get more applications than we have TA positions available, so please make sure you are thoughtful in your responses.

Applying to be a TA for CSE/STAT 416 will be done in two phases that we explain further in the sections below:

  1. Filling out an application, which involves telling me a bit about your experience and recording a short teaching demo.
  2. An in-person interview where we can discuss your teaching interests, goals, and you will give a short live teaching demo.

Even if you are unsure of your qualifications for the position, I encourage you to apply! We don't require previous teaching experience or a 4.0 in your CS courses to be hired as a TA. There is an expectation that you know the content well enough to teach the material in the course, but if you took CSE/STAT 416 with us at UW, you will definitely already be familiar with all of the material! I look a lot more at teaching attitude and potential during the teaching demos. I'm also looking to build a diverse team of TAs that can compliment each other's strengths (some TAs excel at infrastructure work, others at helping students in office hours, others in teaching section). There is almost surely a way that you can be a good addition to the team, so I encourage you to apply even if you aren't certain! The worst that can happen is that I say "no".

Step 1) Initial Application and Short Teaching Demonstration Video

For this phase, we will ask you to fill out an application on a Google Form. This Google Form will ask you to answer some questions about your background, some questions about teaching, and questions about availability to make the course meetings listed above.

Video

I am also asking that you submit a short, 3-minute video demonstration of your teaching. Suppose we are in Week 2 of the course and the students have already been introduced to the concepts of regularization methods such as Ridge and LASSO regression during the lectures. Your video should be targeted towards the beginning of the section, where you are recapping concepts for students before diving into problems for the day. Note: You will almost surely not get to any practice problems in 3 minutes of recap!

Your video should be no longer than 3 minutes long. I will stop watching the videos at the 3 minute mark, so it's important that you meet this time limit. Do not rush through the video. It's much better to do a good job covering a little less material at a regular pace, rather than trying to squeeze a 10-minute review into 3 minutes. The Google Form will also ask you to explain the context of your lesson (e.g., what students have already seeen); this shouldn't stop you from introducing the topic in your demo since the demo is what you are showing to "students", and the Google Form is just for Hunter to know what these hypothetical "students" have already seen. You are free to use any materials from our course websites or make your own if you wish. You also don't necessarily need any prepped materials and can use some type of whiteboard with your demo (be it a real whiteboard, a piece of paper, or a virtual one).

You should upload your video to some service like YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox, or Google Drive and make it link shareable so that I can access it through some link you provide. Make sure to test the link in an icognito browser to make sure link sharing is on! This video will only be viewed by Hunter for the purpose of this TA application, you can feel free to take it down after you hear back about the application.

Dates
  • Applications received before Tuesday, February 28th at 5:00 pm will receive priority consideration, but you can always apply after this point.
  • You will hear back from me by Friday, March 3rd with information about next steps if you are selected for an interview.

If you have any questions about this process, please feel free to reach out to me (hschafer@cs.washington.edu) with any questions.

Step 2) In-Person Interview

You will receive an email from me if you are invited to an in-person interview and will be emailed a link to sign up for a slot. Interviews will be 20 minutes long and will be held in my office between Wednesday March 8th and Tuesday March 14th .

More information will be sent to you after the first phase of the application if you are selected for an interview.

Much of this text is borrowed from my colleagues who wrote the CSE 14x TA Information page.