Month: April 2011

When I first had the thought that is the title of this blog, there was more sarcasm involved.  At the very beginning of the semester, I knew that this was one of the tasks that I had to complete for this course, and at the beginning of the semester it was far from my mind, and then, it showed up.  From the second we finished our discussion, chose our topics, and were given our instructions, I was nervous, and I felt slightly overwhelmed, not knowing exactly where to start.  This project was unique to my college career, I have had presentations before, but I viewed this as more of a teaching process than just a class presentation.  After reading the chapter in the book, many times, and second guessing every word I placed on the slides, I finally was comfortable with my section of the lecture, yet I was still preparing what I was going to say the morning of the lecture.

Although I was still tweeking my lecture on the day of, I practiced the lecture three times, and no times were in front of people.  As I discussed this theory with the other TA’s, I suddenly panicked that I was under prepared.  Around the time I started talking to other TA’s was the time I began to get very nervous.  And my nerves reached their highest peak when we were standing inside of the classroom, and waiting.  Once we finally started our lectures, I started to calm, until Amanda went, and my nerves began all over again.

I felt confident it my topic, what I was discussing, and the information I had planned to share.  However, by the time it was my turn to present, I knew that we were behind on time, and I hadn’t planned on a slide to delete.  As I began discussing my topic, I felt myself going very fast, and when the student asked me to repeat my last statement, it was more reassurance that I needed to slow down.  After my first slide, I took a deep breath and gave myself a quick pep-talk to get me through the rest of the slides.  I know I went fast due to my nerves, I also knew I had a time limit to adhere to.  Before I started talking to the class, I thought the 6-7 minutes was going to be forever.  Once I started my discussion, and became very comfortable in front of the room, I wished I had more time.  While standing in front of the class, I suddenly felt like I could give an entire lecture no problem (now that I’m sitting away from the class, I’m not so sure of this fact quite yet….).

I felt like my topic had very little class interaction points, or video content to add.  I had another class interaction on helplessness theory, however I knew we were short on time, and I cut it during my lecture ( I did make a point to make sure that the students understood, by encouraging the head nod).  I felt if I had more time I would have been able to encourage more class interaction, and a different topic would also have more information to share.  I also feel like some of the other topics are of more interest to the students, and have more information.  It may be beneficial to have those take more of the lecture time, and the topics that are less interesting/have less information to take less time in the lecture.

I was pleased with the fact that although I brought my notes to the podium, I did not need them.  There were a few times that I looked  up to the screen to ensure that the words showed up, and I was on track, but I did not need to look at my notes.  I was very confident before I walked into the room, and I knew that I had my lecture down, and I was confident in what I was saying.  Once I walked into the room though, my nerves tricked me into thinking I forgot all of my information.  Thankfully, that was not the case 🙂

Those of you doing your third set of reviews, blog on how your performance and student interactions have changed (if so).

Considering only six people showed up, I was a lot more comfortable talking in front of them. It was easier to make conversation and check to see if anyone had questions. I think that my eye contact was better because of the smaller group setting. I was alsoable to get everyone to participate without making it awkward for anyone. I think the students may have also liked how small the session was. I also periodically asked if we were going to fast, the response was always no. I asked why the other answers did not work and defined the other answers so they better understood why it did not work. I was surprised by how much some of them did not know. Even things we just talked about in class that day!.

This review session went smoother than the last just because there was a computer in the room when we got there. Everything worked beautifully and we used the entire fifty minutes.

Although this was supposed to be a semi prep for our lecture, I am still terrified of giving a lecture to that many people and keeping it interesting for them.

This week students will be taking their third exam. I read a couple of the other TA blogs and it’s really nice to hear that they had some good discussions during their review session. I wish that all the review sessions could’ve been like that. I’m really glad that students are willing to participate and discuss the questions with each other.

I had my study table this week. I didn’t have anyone come but I figured they would go to the review session instead which I understand especially if they were participating. It’d be nice to see somebody attend Amanda’s study table since her’s is the last one of the semester and none of the other TA’s as far as I know have had any students come and talk to them.

During class we have been embedding into the class more often. I think that it is really interesting to see what the students do during class. Over the past weeks I have noticed something interesting. I noticed three students that don’t take notes and each of them sit right next to the walls. I’m not sure if it is because they figure nobody will be able to see they are not taking notes or if it is just a coincidence. I know that we see a lot of differences between the front rows and the back rows but I wonder if there is a difference between the inside rows and outside rows.

Another thing I noticed was that many students only write down what is on the powerpoint and not what Dr. Gurung says during class even if it is something important. I wonder how this changes over the amount of time you are in school because I can remember doing the same thing. It took me a couple semesters to finally realize that the comments professors make in class are just as important as what’s on the powerpoint.

I have had more students e-mailing me, mostly about their grades for in-class assignments. It’s easy to tell the end of the year is coming up. Hopefully this third exam goes well for all of the students and hopefully the interactive review sessions made an impact so the final exam review sessions go just as well!

My first two review sessions were somewhat of a disappointment to myself, and I was unsure of how to better them.  After the e-mail that Dr. G sent that listed how students had felt about previous review sessions and some main points of reference, I felt more nervous about the review session, but I also was happy having the pointers.  I was slightly frusterated knowing that some of the students felt as though the sessions were going too fast, and the students did not always leave with a full understanding of what the correct and incorrect information was.  I was frusterated because I did not complete the review sessions fast on purpose, and I did not purposefully avoid clarifying answers, I was never asked questions to answer.  I also more often than not had one student that answered all of the questions, with no participation from anyone else.  I made a point to ask if there were questions, to pause and ensure that there were no students that were confused, but with no participation it was very difficult to decide if something need clarification. 

However, after the e-mail, Alli and I discussed the plan for this review session.  We discussed maybe giving each student a question to answer (which could lead to a lot of discomfort for individuals), allowing the students to get into groups to discuss the answers and decide on an answer as one (which could still allow for students to not get questions answered, and as a student told us on the walk over was too much work for a review session) or simply a general raise hands if you think the answer is “this” (which we were told as we were walking to the session with students that noone would raise their hands).  Instead of choosing one of these techniques, we simply made an annoucement at the beginning of the session that this review session was going to be more discussion based, and if anyone had any questions, or felt we were going too fast, to simply let us know.  Clearly, this little announcement worked!

During the review session, we spent an entire hour discussing anwers, developing questions, and answering questions.  All of the students participated in the review session, and more often than not, when one student had  a question another student had the answer, they were teaching each other!  Also, there were questions, and quite a few of them.  There were questions on why the answer was not what the student was thinking, and there were debates on which answer was the correct answer.  After discussing the possibilities, it was easy to see that suddenly the correct answer “clicked” with the students.  There were students that were discussing the answers, and misunderstandings with each other, and if it still wasn’t clear they asked everyone.  There was also a huge variety of students answering the questions.  It was a really great review session and I really felt like the students left with a good understanding of the material, and I felt better with the session that I produced.  I felt much more comfortable in front of the students this time, and I was okay with the silence, which I was not before.  I was still apprehensive when answering questions, but when I didn’t know the answer I was able to give the students the comfort in knowing that I was going to get them the best answer.

When asked the question “What makes students come to class?” and “What makes a good attendance policy?” one thing came to mind. Being a student and a TA looking at this topic I have to chance to have two points of view. After completing years of college courses I have seen my fair share of different attendance policies or lack there of and the main question I have is, “Who decides whether a student should be penalized or not?”

This is an interesting question because the students are the ones that are typically paying for their education and it is really their choice of whether or not they want to attend on any given day. However, the flip side to this would be the students how are lucky enough for someone else to pay for their education, therefore they may feel like they don’t have to try as hard because they are not paying every little dollar. My advice for parents who pay for their children’s education would be to set a few rules. For example, I am one of the lucky ones where majority of my tuition is paid for by family however, I have to maintain a certain GPA and if I do not that money is gone and I would be left to figure it out on my own which motivates me to attend class and for the mere fact that I feel awful when I skip a class. Back to the question, I personally feel that professors should not penalize students for not showing up, but reward them on certain days. This could be done by taking attendance every day; which may encourage the students to show up on a regular basis, and then on select days when an in-class activity is given it could be used as a “bonus day.” The key here would be to not let the students know it is a “bonus day” until all assignments have been collected because they could easily add a friends name, which we know is a common theme at universities because there is not a way to be caught unless its a small class where the professor knows everyone by name.

I feel this would be the best way to reward students for their attendance because it encourages attendance because the “bonus days” could be any day! When it comes to skipping classes, well its the students choice and if they want to miss out on important information that will help them further in their college careers I personally feel its up to them. They choose their own fate and own grades!