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.