Utilizing Undergraduate Teaching Assistants: An Untapped Resource.

This paper describes the use of undergraduate teaching and research assistants in the Psychology Department of a university. This program creates additional resources for the department and provides mentoring opportunities for students who are interested in going to graduate school. Hiring and training undergraduates to be teaching assistants is cost effective as the number of students in each class section can be increased without needing additional adjunct faculty. Students interested in becoming teaching assistants must take a course titled "Psychology Applied to Teaching" before their placement. They are then mentored by individual faculty members. A student who has been a teaching assistant for at least one semester becomes the Head Teaching Assistant to work with the new assistants and to do some of the mentoring as well. The research assistant program relies on individual faculty members who are encouraged to involve undergraduates in their research. A list of some publications with which student teaching and research assistants have been associated is attached. (SLD)