What are your responsibilities as a GSI?

• Interacting with your students
  • In person: section (1-2x per week), lecture (1-3x per week), lab (1-2x per week), office hours (2-3 hours per week)
  • Electronically: email, newsgroups, WWW, instant messenger
  • Helping them out with projects
  • Helping them deal with their project partners
  • Achieving a balance between answering questions and fostering self-reliance.
• Interacting with the professor
  • Weekly meetings to review material to cover in section
  • Reviewing the syllabus for the course
  • Asking questions about the material
  • Learning about their expectations (and yours)
  • Giving lecture feedback (tact is important)
  • Relaying student feedback
  • Determining how important are grades
  • Discuss plagiarism policies
  • Never argue with professor in public (especially not in lecture)
  • Never insult the professor to your students
• Preparing for section
  • How many hours do you need?
  • Where do you get ideas?
    • Talk with the professor
    • The other GSIs in the course
    • The book
    • Points that lecture missed or did badly
    • You took this class in college -- use your old notes!
    • Questions from Office Hours/Email
    • Old tests
  • Prepare an outline
  • Practice to your roommate or to another GSI before section.
    • Don't waste time in your first section of the day because you haven't practiced an explanation.
• Running a section
  • Write down an outline of things to do that day
  • Write down future events of concern to students (tests, due dates)
  • How to cover all of your topics
  • Sticking to the outline (or not)
  • Go with the flow
  • Socratic method
  • Asking questions to your class
  • Answering students' questions
  • Discuss applications, not just theory. Usually the professors gives them more theory than they want. It's up to you to give them a little grounding in reality.
  • Bring props
  • Handouts, handouts, handouts
  • When to do administrivia -- in the middle.
  • When to give back tests -- at the beginning (otherwise you'll watch them squirm for an hour)
  • Teach to the middle, not the top nor the bottom
  • How to use the board
    • Look at the students, not at the board
    • Erase up and down, not side to side (physical demonstration)
    • Write bigger than you think you need to
    • Use colors! (make sure students can seem them)
  • Pay attention to your students (look for glazed eyes)
  • Monitor the energy flow of your students
  • Play games!
    • Human Cons Cell Jeopardy (CS61a)
    • Lost on the Moon
    • Compiler Jeopardy!
  • Tailor examples to very little writing, lots of interaction/explanation. If you need to spend a lot of time writing it, put it on a handout.
  • Use the computer in your classroom for demos/presentations.

• Running a Lab
  • In CS, this can be boring.
  • Watch over your class and ask each group questions proactively.
  • Notice students who are in trouble and slow-going.
  • NEVER drive the computer/equipment for a student (unless it's to fix something that is totally irrelevant to the class that the student will never ever need to know or see again.)
  • Ditto.
• Office Hours
  • In your office or somewhere else?
  • Scaling to the number of students
    • Few students: personal instruction, one on one
    • More students: mini-recitation-style
    • Many students (like before a test): move to a bigger room, essentially do a recitation (but find out what they want to hear about (usually everything.
  • Scheduling: Do them when students can make, not when is convenient for you.
• Other forms of communication
  • Email
    • Be available for your students
    • Answer promptly or write back saying you need more time.
    • Keep of list of class email addresses
  • Instant Messenger
  • Newsgroup
  • Web pages
  • Phone
• Grading: assignments, tests, projects
• Making up homework
• Making up test questions
• Project maintenance
• Debugging exams and homework
• Hanging out with other TAs
• Going to lecture (and not sleeping)
• Dealing with problem students
• Holding review sessions for tests
• Making up review sheets and sample problems for students to solve (usually helpful but optional)