Is it a good practice for teaching assistants to sit in the lectures? Has anyone tried this technique and how has it worked out for you?

Essentially, there are several problems with doing teaching assistant work (TA),


You might not even be from the institution where you are doing the TA, you are unfamiliar with the course structure and the textbook, but you have learned some equivalent courses before.
Courses can have several lecturers, each going at a slightly different pace. You don't know what your students know and get blank stares from them during tutorial hours.
You want to enhance your teaching material by identifying spots where students might be more easily confused, where in the lecture might question for exams be drawn from, the emphasis of the lecture versus textbook, and so on.


I think an easy way to overcome these problems is by sitting in the lectures with the students. I have never done this because it sounds too time-consuming, also it might look "strange" to the professor AND to the students.

Has anyone tried doing this and how has it worked out for you?

For lecturers/professors: do you think it is a good idea for your TA to sit in your lectures?
I have seen TAs do this, but generally don't ask my own TAs to do it. As you say, it's a (very) time-consuming way to solve the coordination problem. I personally prefer to just sit with the TAs for a few minutes (&lt; 30 minutes) every so often to coordinate, which in my experience has been completely adequate. Of course this means that I have to invest a little of my own time, but I find it completely appropriate to invest a few minutes of my own time every so often to save my TAs quite a lot of time - but of course your milage may vary with other professors. I certainly wouldn't find it strange if a TA sat in the lecture, I just don't find it necessary.

However, I do strongly suggest that the TAs take some time to go over the teaching material, so that they get a sense for what I am covering in the lecture, and how far I have gotten by the time their tutorial or supervision session rolls around.

Finally, we have also used a joint Slack channel where TAs can ask questions and expect a fairly immediate response. This has been useful for me to communicate if I, for instance, needed to skip a section due to time reasons, or if I felt through in-class exercises (or blank stares) that a certain topic needs deeper exploration in the supervision sessions.