Allocation and cover

Matching your Skills

We will allocate demonstrating opportunities according to the skills and knowledge that you have and the days that you are available to teach.

We do this so that:

• We can provide the best learning experience to our undergraduate students by allocating the most appropriate demonstrators to any particular teaching session and
• You can reasonably be expected to prepare adequately for the session given the time allowance for preparation. This does not mean that you will be teaching the same sessions year after year.

Developing your skills

We will remind you to complete and submit the ‘skills and availability’ questionnaire each semester.

Broadening your courses and sessions - As your knowledge and experience develop (as part of your PhD and demonstrating experience) the range of courses and sessions you can demonstrate on will develop in parallel.

Fill in the skills and availability questionnaire - You can indicate your new knowledge and experience to us by adding this to the next skills and availability questionnaire that you complete.

Example - when you start your demonstrating career you may have very limited or no experience using a compound microscope.  Later you may have to learn to use microscopy regularly as part of your PhD.  This would then put you in a perfect position to pass on your skills and knowledge to our undergraduate students as part of a class that involves those skills.

Check your allocated classes

• You will receive an email notifying which courses you are assigned to.
• You should then go to the 'BTO demonstrators and tutors allocation' Teams site-  find the course 'tab' and check your allocation details.

Timetable clashes and other problems

If you notice any problems such as timetable clashes please let us know as soon as you can. 

 Normally we allow course organisers or practical floor leaders to select their own demonstrators

• This is because postgraduate and third year undergraduate classes can require specific knowledge and experience.  
• Demonstrators are often recruited due to the knowledge and skills related to their PhD subject area.  
• You may be contacted directly by academic staff for this purpose.

This allocation information is then passed on to the BTO demonstrators team.  

Recruiting extra demonstrators

If more demonstrators are required we can then use the skills and availability questionnaire to help find suitable candidates for particular classes.

• Some third year courses do not select their own demonstrators and the BTO team can again use the skills and availability questionnaire to help find suitable candidates.
• This means that even if you have been specifically approached in person to help on a particular course it is important that you complete the skills and availability questionnaire.  

The length of a sequence of practicals or workshop sessions varies hugely from course to course. 

As a demonstrator, you are a contracted member of the Biology Teaching Organisation (BTO) and as such you should show professional commitment to the role and should not casually change allocations for minor situations.  

Continuity is an important aspect of good demonstrator/student relationships and we are ideally looking for demonstrators who can commit to being available for a full sequence of teaching sessions.  

• We do realise however, that life can produce unexpected events and problems that cannot be predicted.
• There is provision for some flexibility if you cannot make certain days or weeks.
• We are usually able to find suitable replacements for certain sessions.  However, continuity and forming relationships with your students is important (for example we encourage demonstrators to supervise particular lab benches each session) so we are ideally looking for demonstrators that can commit to being available for any given series of sessions.

If you realise that you can no longer attend a class to which you have been allocated read the information below.