The sessions provide a regular forum for graduate students and faculty to discuss the challenges of teaching. Most importantly, the discussions arise from the actual experiences of graduate student teachers. This means problems can be addressed while they are happening. Finally, the Departmental Course has encouraged graduate students to be conscious of what they want to get out of an academic career. TAs are responsible for assigning grades to all of the students in their sections.
Teaching assistants receive feedback and support in a number of ways.
First, the supervising faculty holds weekly meetings with all of the TAs for her course. Second, the supervising faculty attends one of each TAs' sections, and completes a written evaluation of the TA's teaching performance. Third, TAs attend the Departmental Course, in which they get a chance to discuss issues that arise in the classroom. Finally, TAs write personal assessments. While these forms provide some useful guidelines for evaluation, they are rarely used by departmental faculty.