Overview
I was a TA for BIOEN 317 in the Spring of 2020. While this was not my first-time teaching, it was the first time the entire teaching team was doing so all over zoom. Doing a lab class over zoom was an interesting experience since we had to pivot everything to an online medium. While this was somewhat more manageable since a large part of the class already involved computer-based work, circuit design, another crucial part of the class was something we had never done online. As a TA for the class, I graded student lab reports and facilitated office hours wherein I answered questions related to assignments and other related concepts.
Personal Importance
This experience was important to me because it was a very positive teaching experience and also an online teaching experience. I was also in India in the Spring of 2020, so I was working with a 12.5-hour time difference with the rest of the teaching team and most students which was also a challenge.
Additionally, this experience also enforced my desire to pursue teaching opportunities in grad school in addition to research and pursue teaching as a career along with research which now drives my eventual goal to become a faculty member at a university.
Additionally, this experience also enforced my desire to pursue teaching opportunities in grad school in addition to research and pursue teaching as a career along with research which now drives my eventual goal to become a faculty member at a university.
Tasks Accomplished
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Leadership Competencies Gained
Synthesis:
I had to relearn a lot of information since I had taken this class over a year ago. I also had to further reinforce my concepts with newer knowledge so that I can easily break it down for my students. In the class I was a TA for, there was overlap with other classes that were being taught in the same quarter, so it was also important to have some degree of understanding of what was taught in the other classes in order to relate what was taught in the other class to what we are doing in this lab class.
Helping others:
This was the most fruitful part of the position and something that I truly enjoyed. Through office hours and often over email, I would answer questions that students had and help them through their assignments. I also enjoyed talking to students about their other classes in Bioe and relating my experience and offering advice wherever I could since I had taken the same classes a year ago. During these conversations, I would talk to students about other bioe classes and what taking them was like for me both in terms of difficulty and the learning experience. This was also a very good opportunity to get to know students in the cohort after mine.
Organization:
Working with a team of graders, this was particularly important. Additionally, since I was living in a different time zone, the times we could set up meetings was a lot more limited so being organized and planning things well in advance was important. The grading team would usually grade one report together and then grade the rest of the reports on our own, we would do this to ensure consistency in our grading style by comparing average scores given and ensuring they was not too much variation. Additionally, we kept track of grades on canvas and compiled all scores at the end of the quarter.
Providing feedback:
While I was assignments, I also had to provide rationale wherever I took points off for students and also provide feedback on what they can change in the future in order to write higher quality lab reports. One of the most challenging parts of this class was that students were initially struggling with formatting lab reports and where unsure what parts of the report should be discussed in what section. We worked our way through this by pointing our specific examples of where students misplaced certain parts of the report in the wrong section, for example discussing methods in the results section.
Group development:
During this experience, I was working with a team of graders and so we had to coordinate and determine how we want to grade. Often during the grading process, we would talk through what we considered a fair reason to deduct points and how many points should we be taking. We also had to be consistent with previous years, so this often required a lot of discussion. We did not always agree in everything and this helped me learn how to find a point where all of us can agree. Additionally, we coordinated among ourselves to ensure that we are able provide help to all students who needed it.
Resilience:
Since I was attending the quarter from India, I had to work with a pretty big-time difference and usually held my office hours at 1 AM in the morning which was challenging since I had to explain assignments while feeling very sleepy. Attending school with a 12-hour difference was challenging overall and I had to significantly change the way I planned my day in order to accommodate school and a somewhat healthy sleep schedule. Additionally, the fact that I was home but not able to step out and meet my friends I had not seen in months was also difficult to cope with which made the whole experience even more challenging.
Mentoring:
Having taken the same class a year ago, I was able to effectively help students taking the class now based on my previous experience. I was able to help students in areas that I personally struggled with and tips and tricks for assignments that could help save a lot of time or make the process more efficient. Sometimes, I also explained some more basic concepts to students who were struggling in class because they did not fully understand the underlying ideas. For example, I explained binary to a student from the basics when they were struggling to build a voltage measuring circuit.
Verbal Communication:
Being able to maintain good communication with my fellow TAs, instructors and students in class was essential to keep things smooth. Me and the other TAs met every week to discuss how to grade assignments. Many of the times we felt differently about grading a certain part of lab reports, but we were able to clearly communicate our thoughts and come to conclusions we could all agree on. Additionally, I felt that it was important to clearly communicate during office hours and keep explanations as clear and concise as possible in order to help students understand the question or the approach to solving a specific problem.
I had to relearn a lot of information since I had taken this class over a year ago. I also had to further reinforce my concepts with newer knowledge so that I can easily break it down for my students. In the class I was a TA for, there was overlap with other classes that were being taught in the same quarter, so it was also important to have some degree of understanding of what was taught in the other classes in order to relate what was taught in the other class to what we are doing in this lab class.
Helping others:
This was the most fruitful part of the position and something that I truly enjoyed. Through office hours and often over email, I would answer questions that students had and help them through their assignments. I also enjoyed talking to students about their other classes in Bioe and relating my experience and offering advice wherever I could since I had taken the same classes a year ago. During these conversations, I would talk to students about other bioe classes and what taking them was like for me both in terms of difficulty and the learning experience. This was also a very good opportunity to get to know students in the cohort after mine.
Organization:
Working with a team of graders, this was particularly important. Additionally, since I was living in a different time zone, the times we could set up meetings was a lot more limited so being organized and planning things well in advance was important. The grading team would usually grade one report together and then grade the rest of the reports on our own, we would do this to ensure consistency in our grading style by comparing average scores given and ensuring they was not too much variation. Additionally, we kept track of grades on canvas and compiled all scores at the end of the quarter.
Providing feedback:
While I was assignments, I also had to provide rationale wherever I took points off for students and also provide feedback on what they can change in the future in order to write higher quality lab reports. One of the most challenging parts of this class was that students were initially struggling with formatting lab reports and where unsure what parts of the report should be discussed in what section. We worked our way through this by pointing our specific examples of where students misplaced certain parts of the report in the wrong section, for example discussing methods in the results section.
Group development:
During this experience, I was working with a team of graders and so we had to coordinate and determine how we want to grade. Often during the grading process, we would talk through what we considered a fair reason to deduct points and how many points should we be taking. We also had to be consistent with previous years, so this often required a lot of discussion. We did not always agree in everything and this helped me learn how to find a point where all of us can agree. Additionally, we coordinated among ourselves to ensure that we are able provide help to all students who needed it.
Resilience:
Since I was attending the quarter from India, I had to work with a pretty big-time difference and usually held my office hours at 1 AM in the morning which was challenging since I had to explain assignments while feeling very sleepy. Attending school with a 12-hour difference was challenging overall and I had to significantly change the way I planned my day in order to accommodate school and a somewhat healthy sleep schedule. Additionally, the fact that I was home but not able to step out and meet my friends I had not seen in months was also difficult to cope with which made the whole experience even more challenging.
Mentoring:
Having taken the same class a year ago, I was able to effectively help students taking the class now based on my previous experience. I was able to help students in areas that I personally struggled with and tips and tricks for assignments that could help save a lot of time or make the process more efficient. Sometimes, I also explained some more basic concepts to students who were struggling in class because they did not fully understand the underlying ideas. For example, I explained binary to a student from the basics when they were struggling to build a voltage measuring circuit.
Verbal Communication:
Being able to maintain good communication with my fellow TAs, instructors and students in class was essential to keep things smooth. Me and the other TAs met every week to discuss how to grade assignments. Many of the times we felt differently about grading a certain part of lab reports, but we were able to clearly communicate our thoughts and come to conclusions we could all agree on. Additionally, I felt that it was important to clearly communicate during office hours and keep explanations as clear and concise as possible in order to help students understand the question or the approach to solving a specific problem.
Lessons Learned & Future
This was my first quarter long teaching experience in a completely online settings and overall, it was very fruitful and reinforced my interest in developing a career in teaching in addition to research. This was also a great opportunity to experience how things are on the other side of the class, how courses are executed and how grading is done. I especially enjoyed being able to help students taking this course and being a helpful resource to them. Overall, opportunities like this is something I would definitely want to pursue in my future work and eventually delve into developing my own courses for college.