Author: Ashley Miller

The semester is over already! I really enjoyed my time as a TA. I think that the most important thing I learned is to apperciate professors and their lectures more. By seeing all of the effort and thought Dr. Gurung put into each lecture it helped me realize how much time it does take to create an interesting and interactive lecture. The books we read helped give ideas of how to make lectures more interesting for students, but it does seem like really hard work to keep their attention for the whole class period and the whole semester. Being a TA helped me see how much work it really does take. I did show me that not all teachers put the same amount of effort into their lectures and it’s unfortunate because you can tell just by the atmosphere in one of Dr. Gurung’s classes that students really apperciate it when professors make the material interesting and engaging.

I also got to see just some of the e-mails from students send to TAs and it is amazing how many questions students have. I can’t imagine how many e-mails professors get everyday, especially ones that could be answered by just looking at the syllabus. I learned that it is really important for professors to keep contact with the students to see what is working and what isn’t working.

I’m glad that I got to be a TA for such a large class. Even though it was hard to give a short lecture to them it gives you more of an idea about how different students are. Some students do put a lot of effort into the class and are determined to get an A. Unfortunately, some students don’t put a lot of effort into the class which is sad to see, but with 250 students it’s hard to make sure they all do well. It’s hard to get to know each person in a large class but I think that Dr. Gurung implemented a lot of great ways to help meet some of the students needs. The first would have to be the facebook wall. It was amazing to see all of the comments and videos students posted. Just by reading some of the comments you can see that students really liked using the facebook wall. Another was by having the pods. The pods were a great idea because it helped get the students to interact with the other TAs and me, instead of them being confused as to who they could contact.

Giving part of a lecture to the class was very helpful for me. During the first review session I was nervous about standing up in front of about 40 students and after giving a few more exam reviews and part of a lecture I feel a lot more confident about standing in front of a group of people and talking. Making the powerpoint slides and picking videos for the lecture was also a nice experience because it helps you see what professors have to do for almost every lecture they have.

I never thought that entering grades would take so long. Now I understand why it may take professors awhile to get grades in. It really makes you apperciate the teachers that read through term papers or have weekly assignments.

The semester overall seemed to go really good. The majority of the students in the class enjoyed the it and will miss it next semester. Being a TA was a great experience. I met some great people by doing it. I thought that each of the TAs did a great job and I wish them the best in the future. I’m also very glad that I got to work with Dr. Gurung. I’ve had a few friends that said he is the reason that they love psychology and the class seemed really interesting, it makes me sad I didn’t have intro here. I will miss being a TA. It really helped me learn a lot about myself and other students. I’ve learned a lot of things that I can hopefully carry on with me and incorporate into my future experiences.

It’s going to be weird and a little sad not walking into class next week but at least the weather is beautiful!

This past week all of the TA’s gave part of a lecture to the class. I thought all of the TA’s did a great job considering how nervous we were. I think overall I did pretty good there are a few things now that I would like to change, but for my first time talking to 200 students I think I did well.

There were a few changes I would make if I were to ever give another lecture. I forgot to grab the slide changer remote which lead to the students having to catch up on the notes I would make sure that next time I grab it and make sure I switch the slide so students can write them down. I would have also moved around more. I did walk around a little bit but not as much as I  would have liked to. In my lecture I would have also liked to have discussed more of the causes of each disorder. The students seemed really interested in OCD so it would’ve been nice to have a little bit longer clip to go with it to increase discussion too. I also wish I would’ve done more interacting with the class I asked a few questions but I wish I would’ve done more.

There were things that I thought went well in my lecture. I thought that I had good timing I’m pretty sure I was done right around six minutes. It seemed like the students were pretty interested in the topics perhaps that was just because I was first but it was nice to see that they were very attentive. I answered the students questions which I thought was really good and it was nice that they had questions.

The lecture went better than I thought it would I guess I was just nervous especially about going first, but everything worked out! I do find it interesting that it is easier for me to give reviews compared to giving a lecture I’m not sure why this is but it’s something for me to try to remember that talking to a smaller group is the same as talking to a larger group.

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!

There has been a lot of different things going on in class during the past few weeks. The biggest change for the TAs is that a few of us now sit in with the students. I really think it helps us see more of what is going on in the classroom because we are right next to them instead of watching them from the front or the back of the room. It has been interesting to see the difference between the front of the classroom and the back of the classroom. For the most part it seems as though the front part has much more diligent note takers compared to the back. One of the major things that I noticed aside from the difference of front and back is that students tend to only take notes from the powerpoint and not write down anything that Dr. Gurung actually states during class. I feel like a lot of the things he says they should be writing down so when they go back in their notes they will be able to remember it a little bit more. Another thing that I found very interesting is that one of the students I sat next to was working on other homework during the lecture. Granted he didn’t work on it for very long but I thought that it was strange that even with a TA next to him he still did other homework.

Attendance (signing in) is another new thing that was started lately. The first day was pretty interesting because one girl wrote down her friend’s name that was going to be late. She did tell us about it once she heard us talking about it. I think that it will be interesting to see if taking attendance will affect the attendance rates of the class in the next few weeks. Last weeks attendance was low because of a  campus housing situation so it will be interesting once we get another attendance count to compare it to this week. When we took count before spring break and after I found it suprising that the numbers stayed right around the same area. Spring break didn’t seem to affect class attendance at all.

We have started study tables. So far nobody has come to any. I would like to know whether the students have other classes or work going on or if they don’t feel they need any help. It would be nice to see a few students take advantage of this time. I had one girl talk to me in the hallway. She just wanted to talk about the class and tell me what she thought about it. It was nice to hear her side of the story and what she did and did not enjoy about the class. I haven’t been getting any e-mails from any students for awhile now. Out of a class of 200 some I expected to hear from more of the students but I understand that not all students feel the need to talk or ask the TA questions.

Tomorrow’s lecture is about motivation. It will be interesting to see how students take this topic since it relates to everybody especially students. Reading through one of the parts of  the motivation chapter in “Teaching Tips” made me think about the students that contacted Dr. Gurung about missing the exam and never actually came out and said that he had made a mistake. It is sad to see that according to the book he will be less motivated on the upcoming material. I can imagine that would be very frustrating for any teacher to deal with that because you want them to learn and be able to help them but they are just too many people to be able to help them all and the students is at the point where it is up to them to take control of the situation.

This point in the semester is interesting to me because it seems like more students are comfortable with raising their hand and contributing to the lecture. Especially in the last class when students were asked to name there most recently played songs. Quite a large number of people raised their hands and it wasn’t the same people that usually contribute.

It is only a couple weeks before many students start getting ready for their finals. We will be able to see if the upcoming final will cause more people to take advantage of the study tables and e-mailing the TAs. We will also be able to learn a little bit more about attendance. The group I am in for our project paper will be researching how facebook affects learning  so hopefully we will be able to give a little more insight into that topic in the upcoming weeks.

To begin class on Tuesday Dr. Gurung explained to the class how the exam was graded and why he uses item analysis instead of giving a curve. He also told the students to remember that not all questions on the exam were covered during class. I think that it is always a good idea for professors to explain how they graded the exam because it helps students understand how they got the score they did.

This week the students started learning about development. On Tuesday they learned about key concepts of development, the four parenting styles, and the Little Albert experiment. There was one student towards the back of the class that left but Karlie caught up with her before she left.

Thursday’s lecture started out discussing schemas, Dr. Gurung gave a lot of different examples and asked one girl in class to explain what she does when she goes out to a restaurant (I’m going to guess she won’t forget what a schema is 🙂 ) When discussing Piaget’s stages he used a lot of examples. I thought that using a lot of examples to explain the different stages was a great idea, it’s nice for students to have a visual aid once in awhile. I also noticed that throughtout the lecture Dr. G referred to information from previous lectures and readings, it’s nice to show how it all can be connected. The students also learned about Erikson’s stages and attachment.  There was one student that came in late to class and cut across the front of the lecture hall. It was very distracting but I think that Dr. Gurung handled it well and I don’t think the student will ever attempt to do that again. Another student left for a doctor’s appointment, it was nice that he told Dr. G where he was going but I think that he should’ve sat closer to the door.

During our TA meeting with Dr. Gurung we were given a few things to do. We have to decide when we will do the review sessions for the next exam. As of right now it sounds like we will be doing the upcoming review sessions in pairs. I think it will be nice to have two TAs there it will help with answering questions and being able to walk around the room and interact with the students. Another thing we have to figure out is when we would like to have study tables and what we are going to use as a flag or banner that will allow students to easily where ever we are. If we do make a banner I think it should be a really bright color so it catches student’s attention. Sometime before the next exam we are also suppose to come up with two multiple choice questions using the guidelines in our book. I think that it’s pretty neat that one of the questions will appear on the next exam. During the meeting we also discussed the wisdom of experience process, it was interesting to see how that whole process works. Finally we discussed the topics for our research. We decided on attendance and social networking, I will be looking for research on social networking, I think the whole idea of using social networking for education is a great idea. I hear about students on facebook all the time when they are supposed to be doing homework so maybe if the class they are in had a facebook website they would go there to see valuable information or communicate with others in the class. Well spring break is a week away, I’m sure next week the students will be a little distracted especially those who will be doing some traveling but hopefully the majority of the students will still come to class, it will be interesting to see if the attendance numbers decrease or not.