Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) have a considerable role in teaching and mentoring undergraduate students, especially in large enrollment programs. With the growing interest in student-centered learning, GTAs are expected to co-teach these classes due to the demanding role of full faculty in other academic tasks. In addition to classroom teaching, GTAs have other responsibilities such as holding office hours, grading, helping students, answering questions, and attending lecture. Further, the role of GTAs may vary from one institution to another, and from one course to another, depending on the curricular approach taken by the particular institution or course. In a study on curricular approaches conducted under the National Science Foundation (NSF) it is recommended that the essence of engineering, which includes the iterative process of designing, predicting performance, building, and testing, should be taught starting in the first year of a degree program. While technical excellence is essential for engineering students, it is also essential for students to develop team, communication, ethical reasoning, and societal and global contextual analysis skills. Therefore it is suggested that engineering schools focus more on outcome-based approaches by promoting flexibility and creativity in student projects. In some ways, these recommendations denote a growing emphasis on design and open-ended problem solving as opposed to the traditional close-ended problems.
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