Aside from the post-spring break fatigue that seemed to be plaguing not only the class but also the TA’s this week was a pretty good week. Tuesday Dr. Gurung did a review to kind of get everyones brain back in the swing of things, I think this was equally as helpful for the TA’s. We also did a group activity on Tuesday working on classical and operant conditioning, which I thought I understood fairly well. Apparently I didn’t know it as well as I thought I did because in one of the examples when asked about by a student I explained the theory right, but lead the students to the wrong answer. I didn’t realize this until after class when talking to the other TA’s. I realized I also most likely made this mistake in my pod on a similar example. Once I realized the mistake I made I was almost to the point of tears with feeling that I had somehow damaged my pod and their psychology education for life, when I realized that this was one small part of one big class so most likely they are not damaged for life. During today’s review session I did go over the example with the toilet flushing again, this time with the correct answer, since 2/3 of the students are in my pod. The students in my pod seemed really forgiving. I thought that students would discount me as a TA if they realized I had made a mistake. I realized that TA’s aren’t perfect and don’t know everything which is probably a good realization to have! Definitely another reality check in the world of being a TA.
Thursday’s class we covered memory. I sat in back for this class, and noticed that one of the students who seemed to be uninterested at first (i.e. not taking notes, leaving class early, texting, etc.) was taking notes, and though he texted a little bit during class, he for the most part paid attention. Jared was in a seat not making off the cuff comments, falling asleep, playing with his phone excessively. This made me wonder, when did this change in at first troubled students take place? How does student’s attitudes, value of class time change as the students progress through the semester? This line of thought really intrigued me, and it was really rewarding (even as a mere TA) to recognize this change.
Today I held a review session which 3 people showed up to. I was a lot less nervous. Two of the three students I know from my pod, and are probably the students that I know the best in the class. It was a nice relaxed setting and they actually asked really good questions about the material. They also, just before the review session started, asked about psychology as a major and about my experience, my classes and things like that. It was really nice being able to inform them about different options with psych, and what I like about it. I’m really glad they asked, and that this class means something. It is one of the best feelings to mentor a student, and to help them learn about psychology. It’s also pretty cool to be a role-model.
Aside from really good questions, the review session went a little long as discussion got derailed a couple of times, I guess that was expected holding a review session on a Friday afternoon. I told them 1 hour in they could leave if they wanted otherwise I would stay and we could get through the memory chapter review, they asked how many slides left, at the time we had 12. We got through the last 12 and ended at 1hr and 15 minutes. And we all left feeling a little bit better. The two girls from my pod made kind of a crucial error during the review session, one of them knew conditioning better than the other and slipped, “That’s okay, we can work on it together.” I looked at them, not knowing what to say, and said, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” How do I confront the students I know best out of all the students in class?
In other news this week, I got an e-mail from someone in my pod who missed the day before spring break, she asked how to go about getting notes. I responded with a brief e-mail, and said the easiest way would be to contact a class mate, however if all else fails we could set up a time and go over what we covered. This was on Wednesday that she e-mailed me, and I hadn’t heard from her after that. I sometimes forget that students, especially young students, don’t know that asking class mates is the best way and isn’t that hard.
In other news work on SoTL has begun. I’m really excited to really dig into the research and start looking at what the data says about the experiences I’ve had over this semester.
Until next time!