Special Topics
A Word about Teaching Assistants and Section Leaders
Although the specific terminology varies from department to department,
teaching assistants are those individuals who conduct sessions that meet
in addition to lecture presentations by faculty members. These sessions
most commonly serve as an aid to large lecture classes, and the primary
purpose of the sessions is to amplify and clarify the concepts covered
in the lectures—often through problem solving and discussion. Teaching
assistants are in a unique position because they often deal with only
a subset of the members in a class and, in some senses, must function
not only in an instructional role but also as a mediator between the undergraduates
and the professor.
As noted earlier many of the ideas outlined under discussion leading
are appropriate to the teaching assistant. Because teaching assistants
are often just beginning their graduate training, especially in the physical
sciences, they are often more uncertain about how much they can offer
their students. One of the keys t o making this position work is to realize
its unique and full potential. The teaching assistant role is an excellent
one for demonstrating how to approach the material at hand in a more effective
manner. Many students, especially freshmen, may begin by assuming that
your role is an information-giving one. Make it clear from the start that
the information you provide is meant to supplement, not replace, the information
presented in the main lectures.
Let your students know from the outset that your sessions with them will
be used to help show them, largely through demonstration, how to arrive
at more appropriate questions, how to avoid the conceptual pitfalls, and
how to approach the material in a more efficient and systematic fashion.
Unlike the pure self-contained discussion group, the agendas for your
sessions with students will be entirely determined by the questions and
problems that your students encounter with the material.
The secret here is to learn how to be organized yet spontaneous and to
show students through your behavior that you are there to help them. Be
careful about using sarcasm or humor in responding to questions because
an excessive use of either can inhibit students from expressing themselves
freely. Also, before you begin, you should make a point of talking with
the professor about the rationale and goals of the course and your section.
You should also plan to attend most of, if not all, the lectures. In view
of the overall agenda for the course, you can then begin to define your
objectives as clearly as possible.
As you are reviewing the material or attending the lectures, try to remember
the kinds of obstacles that you encountered in learning the material.
Keep a list of these obstacles and raise them as initial questions when
you begin a session. Find out whether your students experienced similar
kinds of difficulties and confusion with the concepts, lectures, or problem
sets.
Often it will help for you to encourage your students to attempt to articulate
what they do not understand. In other words, generally students will merely
indicate that they are confused by a concept or a section of their text,
but they cannot articulate which aspects of that section or concept confuse
them. Before you begin to address a topic, problem, or concept try to
get your students to specify explicitly what is and is not clear. By keeping
the issues and topics narrowed to very specific questions, you will be
less likely to accidentally lapse into unplanned lectures, and the students
themselves will be more likely to stay on track.
Once you have addressed one specific question on a topic, before going
on to a new topic, you might then ask for related questions from the other
students. Often these remaining questions can be clustered, and it will
usually be more efficient to deal with clusters of similar questions rather
than take them one at a time. When a question is raised that is too detailed
or threatens to take the discussion on a tangent, you can avoid counterproductive
digressions by responding briefly to the question but by then inviting
the student who has raised it to meet with you later—either after
the session or during your office hours. It is permissible to stop a discussion
short but only after giving a brief explanation for why you are doing
so and what the conditions are for getting the question answered.
In short, the sessions you conduct should remain as task focused as possible.
Also, you should always strive to stay in touch with your students. Although
all teachers must continually assess what their students can and cannot
do, teaching assistants must be especially cognizant of any difficulties
their students may be having. Yours is an excellent position for personalizing
the subject matter for the students and also for providing concrete feedback
to the professor of the course about those aspects of the lectures that
have been the most and the least accessible to the students—information
that is only rarely available to faculty when they teach large lecture
classes.
Improving Your Teaching through Feedback from Others
Teaching can be a rewarding experience. At the very least, it is an opportunity
to share information about a field that is stimulating and interesting
to you. Just as important, many instructors find that teaching is an occasion
for discovering aspects of their field that they might not have otherwise
noticed. How you feel about your teaching experiences will largely depend
on the quality of the exchanges you have been able to have with your students.
That is, success and proficiency tend to beget enjoyment.
Getting feedback from your students is a good way of developing better
teaching skills. Unfortunately, obtaining candid and useful information
from your students is not always easy. Most of them will be reluctant
to evaluate your efforts openly. However, there are a number of things
you can do, including asking your students, in order to obtain the kinds
of feedback that will be essential to improving your teaching.
Objective third-party observation is one frequently used method of obtaining
feedback about your teaching. There are many people who can help you think
critically about improving and evaluating your teaching. Many graduate
student instructors will be routinely evaluated by the faculty member
in charge of the course. If this is not an integral part of your instructional
assignment, you can still ask to be evaluated. If you have not been assigned
a supervising faculty member, you might want to approach someone who has
an interest in undergraduate education and whose teaching you respect.
Alternatively, many beginning instructors find it easier to be evaluated
initially by a fellow beginning teacher. This person can be someone in
your own department, but this is not absolutely necessary. People outside
your field can often provide extremely valuable information about your
teaching, especially with regard to those parts of the material that will
be the most difficult for your students to understand.
Even if you decide to invite a third-party observer to your classroom,
remember that asking your students for feedback about your teaching may
provide different kinds of insights. However, the timing of this feedback
is very important. Most people tend to think of a student evaluation as
something that occurs at the end of the quarter, but this is in fact not
the best time to obtain, or use, the information your students can provide.
Rather, you may want to consider getting feedback from your students as
early as the third or fourth week of the quarter.
When you request feedback early in the quarter, most students realize
that the information that they provide influences how the rest of the
class sessions will proceed. Students in the College will generally respond
quite positively to this realization by providing constructive comments
about your teaching. Many experienced instructors are comfortable obtaining
feedback informally and verbally from their students. Less experienced
instructors often are more comfortable reserving a few minutes at the
end of a class to ask their students to fill out a questionnaire.
A model for such a questionnaire follows. Although this questionnaire
was designed to be used by new instructors in mathematics, instructors
in other disciplines can undoubtedly see which kinds of changes are necessary
to make it suit their own purposes and class situation. The important
thing in designing such a questionnaire is to ask as many questions as
possible that will require students to describe as well as to evaluate
your performance in the classroom.
Mid-Quarter Student Feedback Questionnaire
Instruction is most effective when there is a good fit between student
and teacher. Creating a good fit requires feedback—both from teacher
to student and from student to teacher. This questionnaire has been designed
to help me learn about those aspects of my teaching that have been the
most and the least useful to you thus far. Most of the questions are fairly
open-ended, so please be as descriptive and constructive as possible.
Thank you.
1. How do you feel about the pace of this course? Is it (circle one)
too slow? too fast? about right? If you circled either "too fast" or "too
slow," what would you like to see changed?
2. Do you generally feel encouraged to ask questions in class? If
so, what has encouraged you the most? If not, what could I do to make
it easier for you to ask questions?
3. Do you generally find the text to be useful and easy to follow?
What aspects of the text, if any, are confusing or difficult to follow?
4. When I use the blackboard, what is my greatest strength? My greatest
weakness?
5. When you go over the homework and quizzes that are returned to
you, do you understand the comments and corrections that have been made?
What kind of feedback has been the most helpful? The least helpful?
6. Do you find that my office hours are ones that would be convenient
for you if you needed to see me? If not, what hours might be more convenient?
7. Do I have any annoying habits that I should know about (e.g., do
I say, "um," six times in every sentence)? ( Please use the back to answer
this question.)
Using the Blackboard
Using the blackboard effectively requires considerable practice. Although
most of us will recognize ineffective blackboard practices when we see
them, obvious errors frequently mar our first attempts at developing this
skill. Unlike the information we convey verbally in the classroom, information
that is placed on the blackboard will generally be copied verbatim into
your students' notes. Therefore, it is extremely important that you carefully
monitor not only what you put on the blackboard but also how you put it
there. The following are just a few of the most basic reminders to get
you thinking about developing effective blackboard techniques.
- Begin by removing all the board work that is left over from a
previous class.
- When you solve problems on the blackboard, remember that students
use what you write as a model for their own problem-solving behavior.
Do not put work on the blackboard that you would not like to find on
a homework assignment or test.
- Always read aloud when you write. Otherwise your students will
be copying what's on the board after you have gone on to the next point.
- Before elaborating on the information you have put on the board,
turn around and face the class. If they look lost or are scribbling
furiously, wait a minute or two before proceeding.
- Periodically check your blackboard work by walking to the back
of the room after class. Can you reconstruct the points you were making
easily from what is left on the board? Is the writing large and heavy
enough to read easily?
- Do not erase new material until you have been away from the board
for several minutes.
- If you naturally have very small handwriting or if your handwriting
is difficult to read, try printing when you write on the board.
- After you have put new material on the board, underline or put
boxes around important points to emphasize them.
Your Professional Responsibilities
Beginning instructors frequently ask questions about an assortment of
issues and problems that have not been covered in the previous sections.
The following section provides brief answers to the more common questions
of this sort. You should also know that there is an official document
of Policies and Procedures Regarding Teaching Schedules, Grading, and
Advising. If you have full responsibility for a course, you should
have received a copy of that document. If you did not, you can obtain
one by contacting the Office of the Dean of the College.
Should I take attendance?—Some
faculty members in the College do not take attendance, especially in large
lecture courses. However, you should plan to take attendance, at least
initially, for several reasons. First, by taking attendance, you let your
students know that you are serious about their being in class and that
you expect them to be present. Second, some state and federal financial
aid programs now require a student to certify attendance, especially in
the event of a poor performance. Finally, one of the first signs that
a student may have academic or personal problems will often be irregular
or nonexistent attendance in their classes. While there may be a number
of legitimate reasons why a student misses several classes, especially
at the beginning of the quarter, continuing problems with attendance should
usually be checked out. After the first assignment has been handed out,
students will generally have gotten these legitimate conflicts resolved.
If one of your students continues to have difficulties after this point,
it is probably a good idea to call that student's College adviser. The
adviser will generally know, or be able to find out, whether the student
is ill or is having difficulty in other courses. If the situation needs
to be checked out further, you and the adviser can discuss how to go about
it most efficiently.
What should I do when I suspect plagiarism
or cheating?—Obviously, the best approach to academic dishonesty
is to try to prevent it from happening in the first place. On occasion
students are accused of cheating when, in fact, they believed they were
operating within the letter of the law for a particular course. For example,
many freshmen are unfamiliar with standard procedures for how and when
to quote or give credit to others. You avoid many misconceptions when
you clearly specify your standards and expectations for when they may
collaborate with their fellow classmates and how and when they must give
credit to others.
Plagiarism and cheating are considered to be very serious offenses in
the College. The College does have a policy regarding academic honesty,
which is printed in the current College catalogue. Your best recourse
when you suspect that a student is cheating is probably not to try to
handle the situation yourself. With a first offense, students are not
usually subject to severe penalty, but it is best to report instances
of academic dishonesty in case the student is following a similar pattern
of behavior in another class. If you are being supervised by a faculty
member, you should report the suspected incident immediately to that faculty
member. After that, or if you are not being supervised by a faculty member,
the dean of students in the College should be informed about the situation.
Is it ever acceptable to date one of my students?—The
answer to this question is a simple and unqualified "No"—not for
as long as he or she is your student. When you assume instructional responsibility
in the College, you also assume a professional position that precludes
many social possibilities because the relationship is no longer nonhierarchical.
However limited your instructional role may be, it is nonetheless a position
of authority, and that authority should not be brought into a personal
relationship—for the sake of your professional responsibilities and
for the sake of the potential personal relationship. Ultimately, however,
the burden of responsibility is with the instructor. The official policy
adopted by the University Senate in May 1990 regarding consensual relations
between faculty and students is as follows:
Because those who teach are entrusted with guiding students, judging
their work, giving grades for paper and courses and recommending students
to colleagues, instructors are in a delicate relationship of trust and
power. This relationship must not be jeopardized by possible doubt of
intent, fairness of professional judgment, or the appearance to other
students of favoritism.
One of the unstated tenets of our policy and our commitment to a climate
free from sexual harrassment has been the view that it is unwise and inappropriate
for faculty who have romantic relations with students to teach such students
in a class, supervise them in research or graduate work, or recommend
them for fellowships, awards or employment. Prudence and the best interest
of the students dictate that in such circumstances of romantic involvement,
the students should be aided to find other instructional or supervisory
arrangements.
Although it is possible for any beginning teacher in the College to feel
a strong attraction to one of his or her students, this situation is particularly
troublesome for those who are just beginning their graduate studies and
thus are closer in age to the College students to whom they have responsibilities.
In any other context, the students they are instructing would be suitable
candidates for friendship or romance. In addition, the problem is often
made more difficult by the College students themselves, who will be less
conscious of instructional responsibilities.
If you find yourself in the awkward position of being attracted to or
pursued by one of your students, there are a number of possible solutions
to the problem. It may, for example, occasionally be possible to have
the student transferred to a different section. However great the temptation
or frustrations, do not act on your feelings. If necessary, discuss your
feelings with someone who can help you sort out the issues, such as an
adviser or another faculty member.
How can these and other problems best be avoided?—Many
problems can be avoided by controlling your own behavior. Maintain a tactful
but businesslike tone and do not frequently deviate from the course topic.
Never ridicule a student—any student—whether in your class or
not. Do not discuss one student with another. Do not discuss the faculty
or your peers. Remember, the students expect you to be in charge. You
are the representative of the institution and your field. You are not
the students' friend—friends do not give grades or wield discipline.
You are their mentor. If you have trouble picturing yourself as an authority
who knows all, try picturing yourself as the leader of the expedition,
as your class explores the subject of the course.
If you are a graduate student, the line between your role as a student
and your role as an instructor can be especially confusing and can lead
to some common pitfalls. The students trust you to provide a productive
atmosphere in the classroom, and it is crucial to maintain that trust.
If a class goes awry, talk with your peers and other faculty to find out
how they would deal with the situation, or use one of the College resources
available to you.
What do I do with the student who tries
to dominate the class?—Some loudmouthed students who dominate
the class may be unaware they are doing so. Start by suggesting that you
would like to hear from other students as well, but invite the loudmouth
to talk with you after class, if he or she wants to discuss something
in more detail. Many times this is the only remedy you will have to take,
although you may have to apply it a few times during the quarter. Some
students in the College just like to talk and will occasionally get carried
away.
If this gentle remedy does not work, you may have a more difficult problem
on your hands. The first thing to do in this case is to remain calm, or
the situation may escalate to disrupt the whole class or the whole course.
The second thing is to get the student out of the public setting of the
classroom, where the other students provide a forum. Never debate your
pedagogical decisions such as grades or objectives for the course in the
open forum of the classroom. Offer students an opportunity to air their
grievances in private. Let them air all grievances, repeat the main points
to make sure you understand them, and show a genuine willingness to compromise
when possible. Express your regret when you cannot compromise, but indicate
that the student has been heard.
What if I think a student is having other
kinds of problems?—Students in the College are all very bright
and capable. Over ninety percent the entering students will have graduated
in the top ten percent of their high school classes. Nevertheless, many
of them will experience a number of different kinds of pressure that may
easily prevent them from achieving in your class. One common problem for
many first-year students is that, because they were generally among the
top students in their high school classes, they expect to be equally successful
in the College. Obviously, if the College population as a whole is composed
of people from the top of their respective high schools, it is less likely
that any one individual will rise quite as easily to the top of the total
class here.
Simply put, many new students feel threatened and defensive when they
get their first set of grades. Oftentimes they react as if the grades
they receive are indicative of their attributes as a human being, not
a measure of how closely what they produced met the grader's expectations.
You are immensely useful to your students when you help them to interpret
these and similar situations in a more reasoned manner. Perhaps you had
a similar experience or had friends who did. In many cases just talking
candidly with students about their expectations for their own performance
and about things they might want to try to improve will be enough. In
other cases, some students may be struggling academically, and you may
not have the time or the expertise to help them. The College provides
a number of resources, starting with the College adviser, for undergraduates
who are experiencing academic difficulties. Encourage your students to
take advantage of these services.
Many beginning teachers also wonder just how much they should try to
help when a student comes to them with personal or emotional problems.
Probably the best alternative, if you are comfortable with it, is to listen
to what the student has to say and ask a few questions that might help
clarify the issues in much the same way you would for a friend. Many times
all that students really need is a friendly and more experienced ear.
If you are comfortable providing it, fine. Do not feel, however, that
you need to provide ongoing counseling for your students. It is probably
best that you do not.
In general, when students come to you with problems either academic or
personal, try to listen carefully and give the best advice you can. However,
be clear about what your limitations are as you offer that advice. If
you feel that you are over your head in a particular situation, there
are two alternatives open to you. First, you can suggest that a student
seek more expert advice elsewhere. Although some students resist seeking
professional help, when you describe why and how they might benefit from
additional help, they are more likely to follow through on your suggestion.
If at all possible, refer them to an individual person rather than to
a particular agency.
What about grades?—Beginning
teachers soon discover that grading assignments can be a difficult and
occasionally perplexing task. Because many decisions about grading are
dictated by a particular course and its goals and objectives, only the
most general issues are covered below. Official College policies about
grading are covered in Policies and Procedures Regarding Teaching Schedules,
Grading, and Advising. If you have responsibilities for grading, you
should, if possible, consult with an experienced faculty member in your
department.
Once you have decided on your objectives for the course, grading becomes
largely a process of translating those objectives into quantified performance
standards. Make sure the class understands exactly what success entails.
Tests must always test the right thing to meet the course goals, or else
students direct their energies to the source of the grade and away from
your goals. The students should not be good at the course at first, so
you need to leave room within your grading system for improvement. Yet
the grades should not cause all your students to abandon hope.
Hand assignments back promptly. Students are less likely to go the extra
distance for a subsequent assignment when they do not know how you evaluated
an earlier one. Quite simply, if they don't know where to put the extra
effort, they don't put it any where. When you hand back a graded assignment,
report on the section averages and offer a way to address the common mistakes.
Discuss the best answer in the group but do not embarrass a student through
praise or criticism. If possible, hand back graded material individually,
not in a public folder or box where the privacy of the individual is not
respected.
When grading a stack of papers or tests, establish consistent criteria
for all of them, take frequent breaks, grade all of one question at a
time, and then shuffle the paper and grade all of the next question. Be
positive in tone, make the most important problems clear, and do not overwhelm
a student's writing with yours. Summarize at the end so the student knows
how to focus both on what went wrong (and how it can be corrected) and
on what went right. Note improvement. Never use a grade as a threat. If
you cannot be objective about a student—through dislike or affection—ask
a colleague to check on your grading. Avoid favoritism or the appearance
of favoritism—the class needs to feel they can rely on your fairness.
Keep a record of the grade distributions for each graded assignment.
If the grade distributions are consistently skewed, you may want to look
at your standards more closely. Clusters of grades may indicate that your
assignments or the standards you are using do not differentiate well among
different levels of performance. Although it is possible to have a class
in which all the students are performing equally well, more often clusters
of scores will indicate inappropriately designed testing and grading methods.
Further, if all your students fail a particular assignment, you should
try to determine why. It is simply not reasonable to assume that all,
or even nearly all, the students in a class in the College are incapable
of or unwilling to produce acceptable college-level work.
Finally, try to keep the students focused on the learning processes involved
in completing assignments rather than on the evaluation process. If they
feel they are learning something and not just being judged harshly or
arbitrarily, they will be more likely to accept, value and try to comply
with the standards you set for them.
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