Cutting my cloth to suit me: Reflections on curriculum development as a Graduate Teaching Assistant delivering ‘foreign curriculums’ in seminars

In UK Higher Education, Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) have become a source of part-time teaching staff, who are typically well motivated, cheap to employ, and adaptable and flexible as employees (Gillon & Hoad, 2001; Slack & Pownall, 2023). According to Muzaka (2009: 1) the number of GTAs recruited and employed annually increases consistently to respond to “growing student numbers, reduced staff-student ratios and deepening resource constraints”. At many institutions, GTAs have more interactions with students in terms of time and quality of engagement than more senior staff. Despite this, GTAs have very little autonomy over the content that they deliver or how responsive it is to the needs and personalities of their individual learners.In this piece, I reflect on my positionality as a legal practitioner and international Doctoral Candidate engaged as a GTA, delivering criminal law undergraduate seminars at a Russell Group University. First, I will reflect on the existing literature regarding teaching by GTAs and curriculum development. Then, I will make a few comments on my practice in this role with both students and colleagues as compared to my experience studying in the Caribbean. Finally, I will share how I was able to reclaim ‘autonomy’ within my classroom and deliver sessions that ‘fit’ my students. The piece concludes that the place of GTAs in forming curriculums needs to be acknowledged much more deeply.