Treat everyone with empathy, respect, and dignity. Be patient, polite, and encouraging. Expect the same from students, and intervene if a student is behaving improperly.
Talk to every student in the same manner, irrespective of their level, age, gender, how well you know them, or other characteristics. Do not get angry or emotional, keep any criticism constructive, and remember that polite disagreement on specific technological subjects is normal.
Do not give away answers! Your job is to help students get better at solving programming problems, debugging, writing tests, etc. Doing those tasks for a student does not help the student in the long run. Ask questions to guide students to an answer, and give them hints if they struggle to use tools or to remember specific techniques. It is completely okay for you to say "I don't know", since we want students to be comfortable doing this too, as long as you are able to point them towards resources that may help.
You do not have to be available 24/7, and you should redirect students who personally ask you for help outside of course hours to the course forum. Avoid helping students in situations that look like favoritism, such as spending an evening helping your roommate's friend who happens to be a student in the course.
Avoid conflicts of interest. Do not put yourself in positions where you have to grade or judge the work of a student who you have an external relationship with. It is always better to declare conflicts of interest as soon as you learn about them.
Examples of unacceptable behavior include:
- Violence, physical or verbal, including threats and sharing of violent material.
- Discriminatory "jokes", whether targeted at others or not.
- Demeaning behavior such as acting shocked someone does not know something.
- Prejudiced behavior such as reducing someone to their gender or ethnicity.
- Trolling, baiting, or other attention-seeking or disruptive behavior.
- Unwanted physical contact, i.e., touching someone without their consent.
- Unwanted contact with students' posessions, especially their computers.
- Unwanted attention, including stalking, following, and sexual comments.
- Encouraging any unacceptable behavior, including playing "devil's advocate".
Examples of unacceptable comments include:
- "Oh, that’s easy, you should just [XYZ]."; What is easy for you, or seems quick or trivial, is not necessarily so for students learning about concepts for the first time.
- "You use [Windows/Mac/...]? Eww!"; Not everyone shares your preferences and your experiences, you can suggest different tools or workflows without being judgemental.
- "Maybe you should consider dropping this class."; Assume that all students have the potential to succeed, and if you genuinely believe you cannot help a student, talk to lecturer.
- "Oh yeah, that’s super hard."; Do not scare students, you should instead build their confidence by asking them questions to help them understand.
Do not contradict lecturers or official course instructions. If you find yourself unable to defuse a situation, or if a student disagrees with your mediation, speak to a lecturer.
This document is based on past policies written with the help of (in alphabetical order) Clément Pit-Claudel, Darja Jovanovic, and Shardul Chiplunkar.