Finding, Hiring, and Working with Your Teaching Assistant

OPTION A:  Invite one of your top students to be a TA. If they are interested, proceed to the next section to verify eligibility.

OPTION B:  Enlist the help of Carey.TA. In your email, please include the course and term and any prerequisites (e.g., the student must have taken the course, received a specific grade, and/or has relevant work experience).

OPTION C:  Post an advertisement on SMILE, a Johns Hopkins platform for student hiring and experiential learning managed by the university.

1. Select Employers on the SMILE homepage and login with your JHED ID.
2. Select which type of position you would like to post (paid campus internship or student job).
3. Specify the details of the position (description, pay rate, hours per week, work location, open to undergrads/grads/both, etc.).
4. Submit your position (positions will be reviewed and approved within 48 hours).

Your TA might be new to Canvas and therefore need initial training. Teaching & Learning's Canvas team will work with your TA to train them in the LMS.  Once your course is available in the SIS section (prior to the course going live for students), please reach out to Carey.TA to request arrangements for Canvas training.

In your email, please include the name of the course, the name of the TA, the TA's email address, and the TA's role and identify any other technical training they might need for your classroom (e.g., proctoring software, Pearson, iDecisionGames, Microsoft Teams).

If your TA does not need training, please follow these steps to set them up in your course:

1. Navigate to your course menu and locate People.
2. After you have selected People, you will see a +People button on the right side of the screen. 
3. Choose Add User by SIS ID.  At JHU, this is our JHED ID. 
4. Enter the JHED ID (e.g., flast1) in the Email Address (required) field.  You need only  to enter the JHED. 
5. Choose the appropriate role (e.g., TA). 
6. Select Next.
7. Choose Add Users to complete the process.

Once you have hired your TA, please make time to review with them your expectations regarding the following areas: timesheets and time tracking, feedback, meetings, tutoring, office hours, grading, accessibility, attendance, monitoring Q&A discussions or Zoom chats, and Canvas calendar.

Schedule regular communication meetings throughout the term. Here are some meeting suggestions:

Kick-off meeting

• Exchange contact information exchange and determine response times.
• Identify acceptable methods of contact (e.g., email, text, phone call, Microsoft Teams, Slack, WhatsApp).
• Give an overview of the purpose of class/learning objectives.
• Classroom ethics
  • Grading Approach: Will you use anonymous grading?
  • Academic Integrity: Will Turnitin be reviewed by your TA?  What guidelines do you want your TA to follow?
  • Tutoring Parameters: Can your TA assist with homework assignments?
• Roles in the classroom
  • Prior to the course start, TA(s) can do the following:
    • Review and QA the Canvas site
    • Review for clarity and grammar
    • Using Student View, check the links and make sure all sections are visible
      • Post announcements and set up groups
  • Answer Canvas-related questions
  • Answer content-related questions
  • Assist in the Zoom classroom
  • Learn and assist with other classroom applications
• Grade and provide feedback (Note: TAs cannot grade Assurance of Learning assignments)
• Determine timelines/deadlines (Note: Please see our Classroom Management document)
• Schedule tutoring sessions or office hours (if applicable)
• Review learning tools and technology

Touch-base meetings (weekly)

• Review any issues (e.g., Canvas, technical, student)
• Reconfirm tasks for the next week (e.g., announcement posts, publishing content for student view, monitoring participation, sharing answer keys for grading)
• Review Q&A from students
• Keep notes on changes/improvements/suggestions for the next iteration of the course

Course debrief meeting

• Review and update notes for the next iteration of the course to share with the course lead and/or Teaching & Learning
• Gather feedback from your TA on their experience
• Consider inviting TA back for the next course offering

Here are some tools that you can use and share with your TA: 

• Faculty-TA Initial Calibration: a checklist of important topics to review
• Classroom Management Template: a spreadsheet that outlines assignment due dates, expected grading completion, and classroom tasks
• Zoom Class Session Checklist
• Canvas Course Role Permissions Guide
• Canvas FAQ

As the supervisor, you will need to review and approve timesheets for your TA(s) weekly. For a more efficient review process, please ask your employees to record hours worked and task(s) completed on their timesheet. Carey uses two online timekeeping applications for recording and approval of TA working hours: TimesheetX and Harvest. TimesheetX is used for all current student employees at Johns Hopkins University. Harvest is used for TAs who are casual employees. 

• The workweek is defined as Monday through Sunday. TAs should submit their hours by Sunday of each work week. As their supervisor, you will review/approve timesheets no later than noon on the following Monday.
• There is no sick, vacation, or holiday pay for student or casual TAs.
• Pay is issued on or about the 15th and 30th of the month.
• TAs cannot work more than 20 hours per week in total. As a reminder, your TA might be working for more than one supervisor.

Payroll Schedule 2025

TimesheetX (you might have to login with your JHED to access)

Harvest