Hiring, Training, and Managing Undergraduate Teaching Assistants for Large CS1 Classes

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

As undergraduate computer science enrollments continue to grow, individualized instructor attention becomes increasingly scarce. The impact of social distance between students and their teachers is particularly apparent in large introductory classes, exacerbated by students' lack of common prior experience in computer science. Some institutions remedy class size and experience gaps by hiring advanced undergraduate students as teaching assistants for their introductory courses. However, without the resources to carefully hire, train, and manage undergraduate teaching assistants (uTAs) during the semester, their potential as trustworthy peer mentors and helpful tutors often goes unrealized. This poster presents details of the uTA hiring process, training course, and management strategies used during the 2022-2023 academic year for the introductory computer science courses at the University of Delaware (UD), a large, public, research-focused institution. This system was designed for introductory CS classes, with the goals of low instructor overhead, long-term scalability, and the development of empathetic teaching assistants who could motivate students toward successful learning. Highlights of the system include a hiring process that considers candidates' personality and enthusiasm alongside their technical skills, asynchronous training provided through the university's learning management system, and the use of a head uTA to manage other staff members. Following the implementation of these policies, instructors and uTAs alike reported positive experiences compared to previous semesters without significant changes to students' learning outcomes.