Undergraduate Technology Assistants (UTA), established by Yale College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, helped instructors facilitate spring 2021 courses. UTAs are trained by the Poorvu Center to serve as a technological resource for faculty teaching remotely. By helping our faculty, UTAs themselves gain valuable experience and contribute to a successful teaching and learning environment.
Faculty requests for UTA support referenced some needs that are out of scope for the intended UTA role. Example responsibilities are listed to clarify expectations about how UTAs are equipped to support online and hybrid instruction. UTAs should not exceed more than five hours of work per course per week. We invite instructors and UTAs with questions about specific tasks to contact us.
IN SCOPE
- Ongoing:
- Meet regularly with the instructor of record to discuss solutions to general issues that arise in remote instruction
- Make suggestions about Canvas site elements from the perspective of a student taking the course to ensure that materials are well organized and easy to find
- Help ensure that live Zoom session recordings are available in the course media library
- Assist students in course with basic technology issues, referring to other resources when necessary
- Prior to live Zoom sessions:
- Work with faculty to ensure that session links are created and distributed
- Help instructors create files to pre-assign breakout rooms
- Help instructors set up polls to use during class
- During live Zoom sessions:
- Monitor chat discussions
- Note hands raised
- Manage breakout rooms (will require temporary “Host” role)
- Assist with screen-sharing
OUT OF SCOPE
- General technical assistance with third-party platforms outside of Canvas and Zoom
- Please contact the Poorvu Center for assistance with platforms such as Gradescope, Perusall, etc.
- Assistance with campus classroom technology for in-person teaching
- Please visit the Yale ITS Classroom A/V Technologies support page
- Assistance with use of specialized software such as RStudio, Mathematica, etc. from the Yale Software Library
- Please visit the Yale ITS MyApps support page
- Assistance creating asynchronous lecture videos
- Please contact the Poorvu Center for guidance.
- Editing closed caption transcripts of live video sessions
- The time required for this task would likely exceed the 5 hours/week allotted for UTA appointments, and may require disciplinary knowledge. Please contact the Poorvu Center to discuss editing caption transcripts.
- Grading
- Please consider requesting additional Teaching Fellows for grading assistance.
- Creating film clips for student viewing or arranging for virtual film screenings
- Please visit the Yale University Library Access Services support page for assistance or submit the film request via the Course Reserves feature in Canvas