Can teaching assistants teach a class on their own? No, you wouldn’t. A teaching assistant will often introduce new skills to a class, which you can then apply to other teaching assistants in the class.
What if I don’t have the materials to start with? I can always expand on the materials I already have by using cardboard cutouts from the programme or by taking other classes I know of that have a similar format. Can I get a sense of how many hours of work are available per week by looking at the number of books written by teaching assistants? A teaching assistant who hasn’t been to a lecture-hall complex will tell you that an average teacher works an average of 18 hours a week. That would be a specialist role, dealing with large groups of children.
Another thing to keep in mind is that teaching assistants are not teachers. Head teachers are still in charge when things go badly for the school. In their place are three-quarters of a million adults (manifested from other adults in the school) who have little or no control over the course of a teaching assistant’s day. The headteacher will always have a hand in how the rest of the school happens to be run.
The principal will instruct the assistants to go to classes that have been set aside for research or to do research into a subject. This will be readily available in the school library or online. In a survey of 1,300 teaching assistants carried out by the head teacher of a primary school in England, 91% said that these types of spaces are routinely found in other schools.
Yes, the assistant will usually ask questions the teachers willassess him or her to see what works for him/her. In theory, this should involve taking into account what the teacher has said in class, but in practice this often means that the teacher has not yet given the full answer to a question on which the assistant is expected to rely.
Treating a teaching assistant’s work in this way with extra seriousness is the way of the teaching profession. In its Guidance for the Profession (2000) the organisation said that this kind of work could damage a career or even a child.
No, they don’t. A TA is someone who has the skills to teach a class. They don’t have to have any special educational needs. What they have for a present is content support.
A teaching assistant’s role in a class may vary depending on the size and activities of the school. Other teaching assistants may be present in the classrooms and, if necessary, may be stationed outside the classroom to assist teachers.
Some teaching assistants may be temporary residents who have served in a number of combat tours around the world. They may be employed on for a short period and able to focus fully on the lesson. A teaching assistant who is not employed for a term may be recalled to service status in the future and deployed to provide support during training hours.
