There will be diverse personalities found in your classroom. You will encounter students of different ethnicities, cultures, religions, and genders. You will be teaching students who have a wide variety of learning styles and abilities. As a TA, it is your responsibility to make your class a positive learning environment for all of your students.
Helpful Articles
For tips with how to get the most from all your students, see “An Instructional Resource Guide for Teaching Assistants“, produced by the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG).
For tips on dealing with diversity in the classroom, read “Diversity and Complexity in the Classroom” by Barbara Davis. This article provides helpful advice on ways to make your teaching appeal to students of different learning types and abilities, and includes tips for making your class inclusive to students of all races, religions, cultures, and genders. Additionally, this article provides advice on how to reduce conflicts between part-time or mature students and younger students when group projects are assigned, conflicts that an be due to differences in experience, and authoritative tendencies, especially if the difference in ages is large.
Other Resources
The UBC Equity and Inclusion Office provides training to promote awareness of human rights, equity, and diversity and to help prevent discrimination and harassment.
The Indigenous Foundations website covers key topics relating to the histories, politics, and cultures of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, and provides instructors a place to begin exploring topics that relate to Aboriginal cultures. This site was developed by the First Nations Studies Program at the UBC, located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceeded territory of the Musqueam people.