 Students speak to students, i.e. TAs in a much different sort of casual way than they might with myself as the instructor. So it was important to have the TAs very much still involved. And so one of the ways we did that was we created Collaborate Ultra sort of virtual office hours in which they could sort of set up at different times and have those appointments sort of open just chat sessions in which their cache of students could come in and sort of connect with them still that way. My TA actually now had to be more involved than engaged in the online platform. You know, versus before where they would sort of attend face-to-face classes, they would now have to read a lot of student discussions per week and make sure that sort of they respond to students questions, comments, concerns. So I would say overall they would have a more heavy and significant engagement and presence on the Canvas platform. And my TA was fabulous and so forth because she had been there for the entire course. She was there. She knew what the tone was like. She knew what we were meeting. She had really great insight into how we could build discussion posts or the peer review events that sort of met the tone of the class. So they are able to help me to explore, say for example, breakaway sessions because in all of my courses I tend to try and have engagement with students and so how to do that online. And so that's where the TAs, actually we had a trial session whereas for me to do it I couldn't pretend to be myself but also students in breakaway sessions whereas they could help me to explore how we could set it up. And they also were able to assist me by giving me information about how their professors in their graduate courses were doing things online. Say for example, exams or assignments. And so I could get a sense from that student's perspective what was working and what was not working and to be able to try to do things differently that way. I think that my advice for people working with TAs for their online course is to be patient and to be really, really mindful of how much time your TAs are taking with the course. I think that with an online course the students will probably go to the TA for more help than they would with an in-person course. You know, it's so easy to email or access a TA. I think that my advice would be to kind of set some parameters for that and remember that your TAs have their own work to do and that we have to be careful about how we use them right now. Without putting too much pressure on your TA but trusting that they have expertise that can help broaden the scope and have ideas that you might not have and just having a dialogue with someone else. It's really important to be patient with them and make sure that you actually take that time and give them that opportunity to sort of learn about these systems and learn about virtual learning and teaching and if you can also, you know, make time to orient them. For example, to the Canvas platform, to the different media tools that are available and how they can go about, you know, creating videos, creating quizzes and so on and so forth. So if I have some advice for working with TAs in an online course I think one of the key things is to help your TAs feel valued as more than someone who's just going to do grading or marking and I think that's just a general comment whether you're online a blended class or face-to-face classes. TAs do typically respond much more favorably if they're not just marking and so some ways to do that is do you have your TAs moderating or help facilitate discussion questions on Canvas? Do you offer your TAs an opportunity to give a 10 to 20 minute sort of micro lecture or host an open chat in which they might discuss one of the readings that you've done that week, for example? Well, what I would advise to anybody is to actually engage with the TAs and ask what they think about various strategies that you might be employing for your students because they really, number one, they may have a good idea because of their own experience, but just I think graduate students like a generation younger than me, several generations possibly, they are much more familiar with the technology and using technology much more at home at it. And of course I have come to be quite at home with using technology, but at the same time from the student's perspective, I think that they have valuable insights that it's good to keep in contact with them. And finally, I really like to encourage you to also think of your TAs professional development and make sure that you provide professional development opportunities to your TA in terms of, you know, make sure they're involved in teaching, give them an opportunity to maybe present their PhD or their master's work or even aspects of the course that's sort of related to their research area of interest.