ABSTRACT
Whether you want to be a really good TA or even use your experience to go on to train to be a qualified teacher, you will need to develop study skills if you do not have them already. These skills include those of personal organisation, recording, thinking about what you are doing and sharing professional ideas. You can practise observing, note-taking, reading, writing essays or accounts, finding reference books and organising your time. Try to have somewhere in your home to keep your school things – books, artefacts, your files and folders. If you do start any course of any depth you will probably need a whole shelf for the books and materials you collect, and find somewhere to study – to read or write undisturbed. TAs sometimes find themselves studying after everyone else has gone to bed, particularly if they have videos to watch as part of a course. Get some nice pens and pencils, Post-its of various sizes and a highlighter. You will probably need ring binders, the plastic document pockets that go in them and file paper, lined in the size you are comfortable with, and a memo pad. Some TAs find themselves investing in a computer for word processing when undertaking courses if the family does not have one, but this is not essential unless you are undertaking a higher level course where typed manuscripts are mandatory. This is extremely unlikely to be the case at this level. In fact, for NVQs, tape or video recording your assessment material should be acceptable if writing is a real problem. It is really worthwhile putting in some time and thought to these practical issues and discussing them with your family; it could save some arguments or heartache later.
