6.1
Senate Guidelines for Appointment of Senior Teaching Assistants and Learning Demonstrators.
It is recognised that experience in teaching and assessment contributes significantly to the employability of postgraduate students, therefore the use of postgraduate student Learning Demonstrators/Senior Teaching Assistants is encouraged subject to the following guidelines:
6.1.1
Only enrolled postgraduate research students should be employed as Learning Demonstrators/Senior Teaching Assistants.
6.1.2
A postgraduate student must undertake the necessary training offered through Human Resources/Postgraduate Research Office and the Faculty/School/Department before being allowed to undertake demonstrating, teaching, tutorial or assessment duties. Training must be successfully completed and reported to Human Resources before payment for demonstration or teaching services may be authorised.
6.1.3
In appointing Learning Demonstrators/Senior Teaching Assistants, Faculties must ensure that they have the relevant knowledge, skills and experience to undertake the demonstrating and teaching allocated to them.
6.1.4
A postgraduate student may not undertake demonstrating, teaching or assessment work, inclusive of preparation time, for more than six hours in any one week averaged over a Semester* Semester and Term Dates - Swansea University.
*A semester lasts for 15 weeks which is where the figure of 90+90=180 hours per annum is derived from, as it excludes breaks in the calendar.
6.1.5
A Learning Demonstrator/Senior Teaching Assistant shall normally be used only for teaching undergraduates.
6.1.6
Learning Demonstrators/Senior Teaching Assistants may contribute freely to demonstrating, tutorials and other support teaching, but would not be expected to contribute to more than 25% of the lecturing on any module.
6.1.7
All Learning Demonstrators/Senior Teaching Assistants will be assigned a mentor drawn from the academic staff, who may be the module coordinator of the module(s) on which the assistant is teaching. The responsibilities of the mentor will be as follows:
- To brief the demonstrator/tutorial assistant on all teaching;
- To provide materials or monitor the quality of any materials provided by the Learning Demonstrator/Senior Teaching Assistant;
- To monitor the quality of teaching provision;
- To provide marking criteria where the Learning Demonstrator/Senior Teaching Assistant is used for assessment purposes and to employ quality assurance mechanisms to monitor their involvement in assessment, e.g. moderating of marks. N.B: Learning Demonstrators/Senior Teaching Assistants should not undertake marking unless in accordance with the Marks Scheme/Rubric up to the levels permitted by the Assessment, Marking and Feedback Policy;
- To review student feedback provided on the Learning Demonstrator/Senior Teaching Assistant as part of a professional development process.
6.1.8
Any exceptions to the above are subject to the approval of the Chair of the Postgraduate Research Board.