Managing a large teaching team? Here’s my hard-won advice.

• Make sure to recruit your teaching team early to allow sufficient time for the administrative tasks required before your unit kicks off.

BUT

• You can recruit too early. Bear in mind that tutor and marker availability may change closer to the start of session.

• Though it might be time consuming, it pays to vet your teaching staff for suitability for teaching on the unit.
• Approach Course, Unit and Program Directors, asking them to kindly disseminate your advertisement on iLearn or via email to suitable candidates.
• As a minimum, review CVs. But if you can, conduct interviews.

Should the Department or School allow for it, appoint a Senior Tutor to provide administrative support, including:

• Assigning other tutors to classes
• Coordinating links for online tutorials
• Allocating and coordinating marking
• Managing special considerations and penalties
• Assisting with double marking
• Assisting with the iLearn discussion forums

• Open tutorials across a wide range of times so as to best meet the needs of different students, in line with the Students First approach, as per the MQ Operating Plan 2020-2024.
• Students will enrol across all tutorial times available. Note that this does NOT mean that you will be able to staff tutorials at those times.
• Use doodle polls or similar tools to canvass tutor availability.

• Recruit more tutors and markers than you may need… but don’t make any promises – class sizes and times will change.
• This extends to your allocation of tutors to certain classes and allocation of markers to certain topics.
• You won’t know final unit numbers and class registrations until well after assembling your teaching team. Let your team know this.
• Your unit’s marking needs may also remain unclear until (or even long after!) the assignment is due.

• As with managing any team, effective two-way engagement and communication is key.
• Create a SharePoint site for your unit.
• Use an email distribution list for tutors and for markers.
• Schedule email reminders ahead of time.
• Consider using live spreadsheets for markers.
• Have regular team meetings to discuss teaching delivery and any issues arising during the course of the unit, as well as marking protocols.
• Online meetings are ideal for maximising attendance, and enables you to record meetings for those who can’t attend.
• The personal touch matters!!! Provide and share positive feedback, enable genuine opportunities for collaboration and co-design, offer lots of encouragement, do regular email check ins, etc (engenders goodwill and loyalty that pays dividends latter!!!)

Ensure your teaching team is well resourced to do their job effectively. This includes:

• Developing logical standalone guides and materials for the delivery of each tutorial.
• Providing well-thought out marking rubrics and instructions for the marking process.
• Offering exemplar marking samples (at all grade levels).
• Provide examples of the feedback to provide to students.
• Share Turnitin Feedback Studio Quickmarks for your unit with your teaching team.

• Provide tutor and marking training/mentoring as standard.
• Think through moderation of marking carefully, and in line with assessment policy.
• Conduct double marking for calibration purposes for both those markers new to the unit, and those who have tutored on the unit before, early in the marking process:
  – Double marking for assignments graded “below expected standards” and/or on the border
  – Review assignments graded as “high distinction”.
• Review marker distributions systematically.
• Initiate dialogue and communicate the same information across the teaching team.

Take advantage of the strong teaching team numbers and delegate. For example:

• Ask tutors to assist with responding to questions on the iLearn discussion forum, contribute to cohort feedback documents, suggest future assignment topics, suggest exam questions.
• Reallocate marking swiftly.

Delegation is good… but remember Lesson #7 and think carefully through the implications for standardisation. Make judicious decisions and monitor.

• Just like any team, members of your teaching team will have different areas of strength.
• Many will be students themselves, so keep your expectations – and their workloads – in check.
• Monitor and intervene accordingly.
• Consider performance management when needed.

• Be prepared
• Be organised
• Be resourceful
• Be engaged
• Be communicative
• Be approachable
• Be collaborative
• Be realistic
• Be humble

Academics who lead large teaching teams of often inexperienced sessional staff have a dual role in professional development. They are both provider and participant.

Davis, C. (1998). Professional development for leaders of a large teaching team: A dual role. The International Journal for Academic Development, 3, 12-17, https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144980030103

Jo presented her 10 lessons for managing a large teaching team to a meeting of the Teaching & Leadership Community of Practice. View the full presentation in the video.

Dr Josephine Paparo is a Senior lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences. She is also a Clinical Psychologist and Course Director of the Master of Professional Psychology program. Josephine teaches Developmental Psychology and is involved in a number of external research collaborations, with the aim of improving psychology education and training.