What exactly is CS 375?
You should think of this class as a seminar, where you are in the same room as your other fellow first-time TAs and have the opportunity to share your experiences and offer advice for interesting situations that arise.
Ultimately, just as most learning is done in your classes by doing the homeworks/projects, most of your learning will come from actually teaching your sections/labs. What this class offers is a chance for you to debrief and regroup.
There is exactly one goal in this class, and that is to get you to think very carefully about your teaching, to consider different scenarios that might arise (and how to deal with them), and to get you to genuinely enjoy teaching! (Okay, that was actually three goals, but they're basically the same thing in my mind.)
Requirements to Pass
- Self-Reflections (1 per day you teach)
- Video Observations (2)
- Survey (1)
You are required to do one per day that you teach an official discussion section or lab (you don't have to do one for things like review sessions). If you have more than one discussion or lab in the same day, pick one to do a Self Reflection for.
If you have both a lab and a discussion on the same day, make one Self Reflection for both, and focus more on the discussion for the "Presentation", "Classroom Climate", and "Student Participation" portions, and more on the lab for the "Focusing on Students" and "1-on-1 Interactions". Of course, you can talk about both within each portion, but the nature of the questions will tend to be more relevant to one than the other.
You will pair up with another TA and videotape his or her section. While you are videotaping your partner, have a copy of the Video Observation Worksheet, which you can use to take notes. Please see the relevant Piazza post for more information.
At the halfway point in the summer (the end of week 4), you will give a survey to your students to fill out about your teaching. You will then make a post to piazza discussing the results of the survey. A post with the exact format of the survey is forthcoming.
Grading
- If you complete all the assignments above and participate regularly during class, you will be given a passing grade.
- If you complete all of the assignments, but I have no idea who you are, you will fail.
- If you do not complete all of the assignments, you will fail.