Phi Beta Cons

Undergraduate Teaching Assistants: Good Idea or Bad?

In today’s Pope Center piece, Ashley Russell, a UNC sophomore, writes about the use of undergrads at teaching assistants in some of the economics courses.

Is this a good idea? She has mixed feelings, but generally favors it. Although the undergrads don’t have as much experience and depth of knowledge as graduate TAs, they may be able to do just as good a job of explaining basic material to students, or perhaps even better, since many grad students are less than perfectly fluent in English.

George Leef is the the director of editorial content at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. He is the author of The Awakening of Jennifer Van Arsdale: A Political Fable for Our Time.
Exit mobile version