Outside of class stuff…

STUDY TABLES

First, this was fun. I really liked talking about the study table in class and I think it helped when we clarified that people didn’t have to stay the whole time. Only a handful showed up, but they came with questions. Most of them were about correlations and experiments, IVs and DVs. There was a question about ERLP and what the scoop was with that. We went over some study tips and talked about information overload a little. There’s so much to read, so much to take notes on and we talked about ways they can read the material and look for the big concepts and figure out how to apply them.

T-POD

So far I seem to be getting good responses out of the pod. The biggest test that I put out there to see if I’d get responses is asking if them to respond if they wanted study tips. I’m not going to waste time putting them together and then sending them out freely to students who have no interest. There have been a few students who have introduced themselves in class, but I wonder if I’m a little too weird for them or if my age somehow makes me unapproachable. 

TA MEETINGS

These feel rushed. Always feel rushed. Maybe it’s because there are so many of us, and I know there is business that we need to take care of in the meeting, but Jess and I were talking about us TA’s getting together informally to talk through things. I feel very smart being around these people and would like to get to know more about them. 

ENTERING GROUP PROJECTS AND THINGS

Wow. This is the most boring/tedious part of the whole experience. There has to be a different/faster way to enter this stuff. 

MISCELLANEOUS

I’ve had several students complain to me about group engagments in class. They’ve said the groupings are too large, too inconvenient, or the people they’re stuck with don’t mesh well with them. The brain function identification one was hard to grade. I tended to err on the generous side. 

REVIEW SESSION

Seems very difficult to make sure students are learning/participating in a session with such a large group. There were comments after that it felt disorganized and that people were answering too fast and I’d like to know how we’re supposed to be accountable for students learning things. Granted, Jess and I had never given a review session before, so it’s hard to look prepared and organized without any practical experience. We had 48 people in the room and not only was it hard to hear, but it was hard to tell who was picking up on things and if students don’t speak up, how are we supposed to know if they’re getting it? I noticed that as a theme today as we read over some of the students comments. They seem to think that we/Dr. G are responsible for their learning the material and only a few seemed to take responsibility. If we don’t hear from them, if they don’t ask questions, how are we supposed to read their minds and predict how they’ll learn best? I think if I were a professor that would exasperate me the most.