I have a note in my notebook saying “Not a lot of people from my pod:(”
I’m assuming this was the day we came in front of class and talked about the whole “pod thing.” Only about 5-6 people raised their hands saying they received my email, but then again, I had just sent it out the night before. It’d be interesting to see if more people from my pod are in class now!
Anyway, I liked that at the beginning of class you related material to the activity we did the week prior (Supersize Me). It gave the illusion that you were there! Anyway, I think the discussion on correlation vs. experiment was definitely needed, so it’s a good thing you addressed it in class.
I noted that you spent a bit of time on the “operational definitions” – which is good because that is a potentially confusing topic. I’m looking at my notes now and it’s still a bit fuzzy. The real life examples are most definitely helpful.
The video game study thing always gets me. I really love video games (although I rarely have the time to play while in school due to my overinvolvement issues) and I am no more aggressive than the average person and I truly feel that I am a very helpful, courteous, and empathetic individual. I’ve done a lot of research on the topic myself, and Bushman’s name almost always appears and he really seems biased. Although I definitely agree that uber-violent games should be restricted, I don’t actually play games with blood and gore, so maybe I’m a bad example to cite. Anyway, while I found the topic of discussion very interesting, I found myself getting really antsy in the back of the room because I just didn’t like “Bushman.” I know no one else would’ve possibly noticed this, but after reflecting on it I find it funny. Learning so much more about psych, you really do see the same people’s names come up time and time again. Having been a communication major for almost 3 years, I’ve seen the other side of this research and done research from the other side too. It’d be interesting to see how much depth there is to the research citing the positive effects of video games and movies.
I don’t honestly have a lot of observations written down for Tuesday the 10th, and I attribute that to my nervousness for the activity. During the class, those of us (TAs) sitting in the back were frantically trying to get the answers to the activity and we kept vacillating between correlation and experiment, and it caused a bunch of issues (not feeling as prepared and not being as helpful to the students). I did draft up a number of questions I could pose to the students if they asked me questions, and during the activity time I worked a lot with about 4 different groups that kept asking me questions. It was great because they felt comfortable talking to me, but now I feel like crap because I really did not steer them in the right direction. I don’t want them thinking that I’m an unreliable source of information, so that was a big bummer. I know that the other TAs felt rather similarly. I think it would be more useful if we had both the activity and the answers to said activity prior to class. It would allow us to be a much better resource for the students. After all, that is what we’re here for.
Thursday, February 12th
I was sitting in the front of class this day, and found it very difficult to actually get solid observations. I know! This is totally contrary to what the experience is actually supposed to be about, but I found it incredibly awkward. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I know the students in front of me were wondering what the heck I was doing there too. (hahaha) Anyway, I felt like maybe if each time we sat in the front we could have a different type of task (like you telling us, “look specifically for this”). Or even if we discussed this in a TA meeting, that’d be helpful. I felt like the experience was for us to just get a feel for what it is like to sit in front of that many people, but I’m not quite sure if that’s accurate.
I did jot down a number of observations though. I noticed that there were quite a few empty seats – it was more than what I expected, but still less than what you would find in a normal 250+ person class. I missed a lot of the notes and should definitely have printed off the powerpoints so I knew where you were going with things. I noticed that you mentioned the facebook group at some point – good PR!
Caitlin (who was sitting with me in the front) and I were distracted for a good 10 minutes by a repeat text offender! He just kept texting away and we were glaring right at him.
Most faces in the crowd suggested engagement and I got a kick out of how each time a new slide appeared, the heads went down in almost a group motion. I had to keep myself from laughing, because I honestly never saw that before. When some people participate, they’re very quiet – you repeating what that person said is something I’ve noticed you do on a regular basis and it’s awesome! Some teachers don’t do it and that is what’s really annoying. During class, some of the people I know outside of class were making funny faces at me to see if I’d laugh so that made things interesting! All in good fun!
STUDY TABLES! STUDY TABLES!
So Trudi and I did a study table right after class. It was a lot of fun. Of course I was nervous – is there a time when I am not anxious about something? (I jest)
It went very well though. We had about seven people show up at one point (plus Jess) and having an extra TA there was very helpful. I did feel like I did some things very well – went around and had everyone introduce themselves, asked specifically what they had questions on, and we addressed those as a group. There was one person who had specific issues with the experiment material (identifying the parts), so I pulled out the Weiten book and went to a page with sample questions and had her fill them out. We went over them and she had all of them right. I joked with her that she must be like me – I tend to know the information but just need reassurance. I hope she did well on the test!