Author: Josh Vanden Busch

So…I just realized that I saved a DRAFT of this post and didn’t actually post this. So…this post was actually completed quite a while ago…(like last Saturday).

What have you learned about yourself and the teaching enterprise by being a TA?

The teaching enterprise:

I would say that I was surprised by the amount of time it takes to be a professor, but because I was raised by educators, I’m really not. They bring their work with them wherever they go (family vacations, the occasional 3 hour car ride, etc.) and I just assumed that this is what other professors did as well. I believe that childhood assumption is correct after having witnessed the behind-the-scenes work completed by you. However, I am rather surprised at what goes on behind-the-scenes and the amount of effort put into each element of the teaching process.

• Before Prep: I find this very strenuous. Planning out exactly what each day’s topic will be and ensuring all pertinent information is given is difficult to fathom. Many teachers fall behind, but I don’t believe you did (or at least not to the extent I’ve seen in my college career). Learning the names of students to increase engagement is something I have absolutely never witnessed in classes this size and is something for which I greatly respect you. I looked through the pictures that were posted of the class on D2L…it was NOT easy to even decipher some of the names much less figure out who was who from day to day.
• Day of: The media usage is something that continues to impress me. I’m pretty tech-savvy and some of the media in this classroom is pretty confusing to me (for example, the lovely light switches that really seem to have absolutely no order whatsoever). Additionally, the energy that it takes to be in front of a group of college students – much less a group of 250+ – is…well…awe-inspiring. I’m pretty extroverted and 20 minutes was enough for me for about a week. Also, the effort to engage the class – this makes class time much more memorable.

I’ve learned that in order to be a great professor – one must put every ounce of energy he or she has into absolutely every aspect of the teaching process. Teaching is about offering learning opportunities and truly linking learning to life. It is not easy to do this for every class, but as psychology is very applicable to the individual, even more effort needs to be put into linking learning to experience. I say this because the entire point of psychology, to me, is to study the way others think and feel and how this effects the individual. Since each of us is an individual, the topics covered in psychology are very accessible and effective teachers will be able to drill this point home and utilize this feature to his/her advantage.

All the different components of teaching are very daunting – quizzes, pretests, review sessions, ERLP, emailing, following up with students on individual and group concerns, relaying important information to all students in a timely manner, etc. This whole process is just very time-consuming. That’s not necessarily a negative comment though.

Finally, I’ve learned that teaching…is just not for me. I do think I could be good at it, but I think I would be simply too exhausted because I refuse to pursue a career unless I can be the best I can personally be at whatever that career may be. And to do this…and do it well, I would need to spend a ton of time organizing and strategies methods for engagement. Not horrible…but not ideal. I’m grateful I learned this now!

What I’ve learned about me:

I am the type of person who is always seeking opportunites to develop more as a person, and as a result, I’m constantly working on improving some aspect of my personality. Soinstead of learning numerous new things about myself, there were aspects of improvement that became very apparent to me throughout the semester. Something  that has plagued me throughout my life is self-confidence and doubt. While I am easily able to project self-confidence, rarely do I feel completely self-assured. I didn’t realize how deep-seeded an issue this was until this semester. It causes me to be very cautious in my approach. Instead of concerning myself with what anyone else thinks of me, I need to find a way to really relinquish the fear of disapproval and love being myself – fully. It’s really much easier said than done.
I learned that I need to learn how to be more skilled with my time management. While I really believe that I was pretty adept at it this semester, there were some involvements that took a hit because I became very focused on being a good TA and being a great executive member of NRHH. Luckily my academics improved (for the most part) this semester!
I know now that being a professor is most likely not what I should do with my life, not because this was in any way a negative experience, but because my eyes were opened to what it takes to be a great professor. I want to be great at whatever I choose to do and I don’t know that I have the passion or dedication to be a phenomenal professor.
I loved collaborating with the other TAs and truly learned how to do this effectively this semester. It now is something that I feel defines me. I enjoyed this experience very much. I had the opportunity to work with a professor I greatly respect, got to engage students with a subject I love, and met 5 phenomenal women whom I have grown to respect very much.

So thanks for the opportunity and I really look forward to continuing my college psychology career. 🙂

This blog topic has definitely taken me the longest to address. It has required me to adopt a more professorial viewpoint, which is not something to which I’m particularly accustomed. The question I’m addressing in this blog post is as follows:

You have seen different attempts to increase engagement. Some students still do not attend or do not take their quizzes. What are solutions to be tried in the future? Include your suggestions for best practices of POD use and communication.

Perhaps utilize the Discussion section of the D2L page. Somehow encourage the class to post more questions there. I did tell students that the TAs looked there occasionally and encouraged people to post psych-related questions there, but I noticed only a few students really utilized it. If it were emphasized in class, perhaps that could be changed. It also allows for a different method to gauge participation. Some people do not like to talk in class, so participation points can be very difficult to obtain. When participation is required,one has to balance offering those that want to participate the opportunity to do so while understanding that not everyone is as open and gregarious as the next person. But I think you circumvented the whole “you must speak in class to get participation points” very methodically – attendance sheets, group activity days, and answering questions on individual notecards.

As far as the quizzes go, I don’t think there’s much more to do that you’re not already doing. Apathy is, sadly, unavoidable. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. Actually mention the quizzes each class period before they’re due.
2. Tie quiz questions to class somehow. (like mentioning in class a question quite a few people got wrong)
3. Pod reminders each week
   • These things could just get annoying and tedious for you and the TAs. Plus, it’s their responsibility to stay on top of them – not yours
4. Perhaps make book specific quizzes. I don’t know that this will increase quiz taking, but it may decrease frustration. The downside is that some people might think that those with the other book had easier questions.
5. Have some of the questions on test come from these quizzes as a sort of positive reinforcement to those doing them. Perhaps emphasize this after the first test, seeing who noticed, etc.
6. Perhaps make it a “clicker course” and do some in class clicker quizzes.

   As far as utilizing TAs:

1. Using pod emails as reminders (again, babying)
2. Asking about the quizzes at review sessions and going over tricky questions

More on Pod usage and communication:

My very first thought upon hearing that we would have pods was that it would be nice to meet with all of them. This would allow us to have direct face time with the entire group and have allowed personal interaction. Plus, I didn’t know the individuals in my pod, so it would have given us TAs the opportunity to put faces with names. That way, we could greet them in the hallway, see them in class, etc. It would be more personal. I know that this would be rather difficult to coordinate (as class time is pretty important!), but even devoting the last 10 minutes of the third or fourth class to this would be good.
I only had 2 or 3 people ever responded to my emails, but one thing that made me really happy was that one student introduced herself to me late in the semester and asked for help with her paper. We had been sending emails back and forth (she was basically asking a number of logistical, formatting, and technical questions) and this extra interaction was nice. This is the type of thing the Pods were created for but I really don’t know that many students knew how to take the whole “pod” concept. I don’t know how frequently the other TAs heard back from their pods, but from what I’ve read in their blogs and heard in meetings, it’s about the same. Additionally, I remember that Caitlin sat outside RH250 each day before class – I wonder if anyone used this chance to get some TA help.

Hope these things are helpful. I might add some additional strategies as I continue to ponder this.

Next up: What I’ve learned about the teaching enterprise and myself. (coming tomorrow!)

I found myself very at peace before entering the classroom. This was surprising to me as I was reflecting later on because most test days were a bit scary for me (though by the third one, I was pretty much in the hang of it). I think I was finally just completely confident in my role as a TA and besides, the scariest thing [the lecture] was far behind me. On a different note – I was also very sad entering the room. I believe that us 6 TAs had such a great rapport with one another and it was really sad to realize that half were graduating. I know Mandy, Jess, and I will see each other next year (Psi Chi!!) but….I’ll really miss our group. It was really fun!

Random observations:

*I liked that we had to pick a spot and stay within that area. Though having four TAs in the front was a little odd, I don’t know where else they would’ve been able to be! Since Caitlin and I were both at the top, we walked around outside to go to the opposite door a few times to communicate with one another – I think this was a good strategy because it was the least disruptive possible way we could get to each other. There were a couple students that had suspicious placement of their tests, so I wanted to see if she could keep an eye out, since her range of sight was a bit better.

*A girl walked in about 15 minutes late. I understand that some people sleep in and stuff…it’s happened to the best of us. So I quickly found her a spot to sit and was prepared to go around outside and down the stairs to get her a test – again, the least disruptive way to do it. But some of the TAs up front saw her come in and ran up to give her a scantron and exam sheet. Yay teamwork!

*After about 2/3 of the people had left, there were some people outside that were being pretty loud. I was actually comfortable in going out to ask them to quiet down (nicely, of course) – which came as a bit of a surprise to me. Didn’t see that in myself!

*I got a really tricky question in class from one of the students. He was so nice about it, but I really had NO clue how to answer it without giving it away. He was definitely on the right track and I just kinda asked him a question back (“based on what you’re telling me, what is your gut instinct on this?”) and told him to look at the entirety of the question (he was comparing one question to another, thinking they were similar, when in fact they were different if the whole question was considered).

That’s it for now 🙂

Next up: Engagement suggestions. (Coming tonight!)

I’ll be posting my final blogs very soon. Just wanted you to know I haven’t forgotten – finals week just was a bit out of control! 🙂

I want to take the time now to blog my initial reactions to the lecture before I forget any of it.

The questions we’re supposed to answer are: How did you feel it went?  What did preparing this teach you about teaching?

How I feel it went (both preparation and day-of):

I was incredibly anxious going into this – a blend of both excitement and nervousness. I was confident I knew the material and had really prepared my section to the best of my ability, so that was not a concern of mine. I was, for the first time, more concerned with the students in the class rather than my own performance. I knew I’d be fine. I knew my stuff – I read both books pretty in-depth in order to really understand the topics well enough to answer any detailed questions. I was happy that I was able to come up with some engaging activities on my own – although they ended up being pretty much what was expected (i.e., I thought of both Copycat and As Good as it Gets on my own, but ironically, the clips were already on tape!).

Before I started talking, I noticed that my first slide had a picture on it I hadn’t seen – so that is why I asked you if it was the right slide show (I was a little concerned at that point). In hindsight, I realize that question could’ve been misinterpreted.

Anyway, I feel it went as well as I could have hoped. I knew I wasn’t going to be very mobile – I used the podium as my comfortable base and kind of went from there. However, it’s very natural for me to speak with my hands, be expressive, and make eye contact with my audience anyway – so I wasn’t necessarily worried about that. My only concern with me standing behind a podium is that could have diminished the perception of my accessibility (as it put me behind something and sort of “cut off” ties to them). I don’t think it had too large an impact, as I got quite a few questions and a good amount of involvement.

After each section, I made sure to ask if anyone had any questions. My rationale behind this was multifaceted. First of all, the repetition drills in that they are welcome to actually ask me questions. While no one had any questions for the first two topics, they were much more comfortable asking questions after the third slide.
Second, I had four different disorders to actually cover (as opposed to being really in-depth with one or two), so I wanted to make sure the material was understood before I moved on to something completely new. I believe it worked, because they really only asked me questions about material on which I expected questioning (i.e., OCD and PTSD).

As for my ability to answer questions – I think that went very well. There were one or two stumpers, and while I could’ve answered the PTSD question if I would’ve taken more than 5 seconds to think about it, it was better that I didn’t take more time to think because we really would’ve been hard-pressed for time otherwise.

On another note, I was very pleasantly surprised when they laughed at my lame little attempt at a joke (when I said that it was ironic I was covering Anxiety Disorders, as I was quite anxious). That really eased my nervousness and allowed me to be really comfortable.

I was SO surprised at how comfortable I felt up there. I’d like to think that it’s because I know this material and truly enjoy it, but I really think it was both my attitude (I went in just thinking – “Whatever Josh, you’ll be totally fine”) and the vibe of the room. My comfort translated into the ability to even go “off script” (I usually have everything I want to say written out) – I was able to come up with a couple additional examples for OCD and PTSD that I did not have before. My explanation of agoraphobia was also sort of on the fly (adding that it displays the evolution of the psychological perspective…totally last minute thought there!).
Random note: I hope it was noticed that I did what I could to stress the severity of Panic Disorders…after watching some people’s reaction to Copycat, I wanted to make sure it was said that these sorts of things are not funny – they’re awful and distressing for the people experiencing them.

Also, there were a surprising amount of people in class today! It seemed like a lot more than in the past couple classes. Maybe it’s because I was paying more attention to that…or maybe people were more centralized due to our “reserved” seating. And speaking of reserved seating – that’s exhibit A of why Mandy is freakin’ fantastic (so funny, that woman!). More on my fellow TAs – everyone. did. GREAT. I’m so proud of our group and very excited to see what Trudi does with the schizophrenia section. Everyone’s energy and seriousness about the topics at hand was great. And kudos to Katie for being able to handle the distraction of me and Trudi running around collecting note cards. (I felt really bad about that!)

What this experience taught me about teaching:

This really gave me the insight into what kind of preparation and daily stress professors experience. It is NOT easy coming up with real life examples, interesting and relevant clips, and different ways of explaining one thing. And you never know what someone is going to ask, so that adds a whole different dimension!

Learning how to identify what is and is not important was a skill I knew I needed to work on – and as a teacher, that is absolutely crucial. You can’t be overwhelming your students with irrelevant information, and I tend to get nervous sometimes and just include a bunch of random info that isn’t needed. This experience allowed me to pinpoint the important things and really prune out the stuff I didn’t need. I really liked that.

I think the most salient lesson is the preparation. I don’t know if I’m being “underreflective” or whatnot, but that’s really the thing I’m taking away from this whole experience. To be engaging, informative, and interesting – you have to be properly prepared to present the material. This is especially important if your aim is to make the material understandable (I have my doubts about some professors and the presence of this goal sometimes). It took me about 2 1/2 hours just to figure out how to get the slides to my liking and then another 20-25 minutes to prune everything out. It’s a time consuming job, preparing a lecture! I’m just grateful I had 5 lovely co-TAs to alleviate the pressure of doing a 75-minute lecture!