Abstract

At the University of Delaware, undergraduate teaching assistants have been used for several years to support students in many of the core computer science courses. Meanwhile, like countless other institutions, computer science instructors continue to be stretched to fit the greatest number of students possible. As universities continue to search for additional faculty members, the untrained undergraduate course staff is still a source of untapped educational potential. Unlike some institutions' developed and robust hiring and/or training processes, computer science TAs at UD typically are hired without an interview or written application and are not given training materials by the department at large. With a newly developed hiring process and training course, undergraduate teaching assistants for UD's two CS1 courses, CISC108 (Introduction to Computer Science I) and CISC106 (General Computer Science for Engineers) were carefully selected and prepared to serve our department's newest students during this fall semester, with the goal of ensuring each student's feelings of support throughout the semester.