Overview

This is the online version of the notes for a workshop for the Fall 2004 Teaching and Orientation Conference for Graduate Student Instructors in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

This latest version of this document will be at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~abegel/gsiworkshop/2004/.

Introduction to the morning

• Vocabulary
  • GSI = TA
  • GSR = RA
  • Berkeley Time = 10 minutes after the hour
• Welcome, my background
  • Andy Begel (pronunciation guide: Bagel (like the food))
  • GSId three times before (CS61a, CS164, CS301)
  • MIT Undergraduate ('96, '97)
  • Research is in Programming Languages and HCI
• Why are we all here?
  • GSIs are critical to undergraduate education
  • The University wants GSIs to succeed

Continuum Activity! (Activities are fun!)

GSIs will stand up and position themselves along a continuum whose boundaries are given below, one at a time:

1. Experience Teaching: A lot / A little
2. Desire to Teach: Raring to go / Dread
3. Career Goals: Teaching and Research / Industry

Name Whip

Each GSI will introduce him or herself to the rest of the group.

1. Name
2. Class you're teaching
3. If you could make a class on any topic, what would it be?

Why are we here? What is the job of a GSI?

Discuss.

Fears and Preparations Exercise

• Break into small groups of 3-4 people.
• Each group should introduce themselves to one another again, briefly.
• Each person should talk about their favorite teacher of all time, and mention one of the things that the teacher did to make them so memorable.
• Each group is given an index card.
  • On one side, write down three things that you all are planning to do to prepare to teach before the semester begins.
  • On the other side, write down three things that you are most afraid will happen in the classrooms
• Reconvene, summarize lists, draw connections
• Go over other fears and ask for suggestions for alleviating them from the groups

Mechanics of Teaching Section

Your first section

• Your introduction
• Their introductions
• Intro to the course
• Talk about how you want to run section
  • Can homework be late? How late?
  • Will you help them outside of class and office hours? How much?
  • How fast will you respond to e-mail?
  • Do you have rules for participating in section?
• Get their info on index cards (get index cards from department front desk)
  • Name
  • Email address
  • Year
  • Experience
  • Major
  • Web page
  • Project partners (if relevant)
• If you've got a digital camera, take everyone's picture (ask for permission first).
  • Write down the people's names on a list in the same order that you take their picture.
  • This is a HUGE help in putting names to faces.
• Schedule office hours
  • Draw up a list of times and ask students which ones they can make it to
  • Select two or three to actually hold each week
  • It's a good idea to recheck the validity of the times a few weeks into the course, as many students will have changed their schedules.
• Ask the students about their expectations of the course
• Make a class home page to foster community (if the students OK it, put their names and photos on the web page as well! (and/or make it password protected with a .htaccess file)).
• Whenever a student speaks, make him say his name. That will help you learn who these people are.

Office hours

• You can do a lot in office hours
• Where do you hold them?
  • Your office, so students can always find you
    • Ask your officemates if this is ok first. Having so many students around can annoy them.
  • Somewhere else, so they can't
  • In the lab, so you can help all the students
• If you have one or two students, you can give them plenty of individual attention
• If you have a small group, you can run it like a small section or an informal review session
• Some shy students won't go to office hours when other people might be there
  • If you have shy students, you could offer them one-on-one tutoring outside office hours (if you have the time)
  • You could also make an office hour appointment-only

The value of the wrong answer

• It's OK for students to be wrong in section or office hours or lab
  • That's why we have more than just lecture
  • A wrong answer can be a learning experience
  • Unfortunately, most students and many GSIs don't realize this
• If you are in office hours or lab, let the student run with the wrong idea for a while.
• If you are in section, you might not want it to go on quite as long.
• At some point, the student should see a problem with his or her work.
  • That's where you come in
  • Help students see what is wrong
  • Help them work their way back to the error
• If the student doesn't see the mistake, or if you can't wait that long, don't point out the actual error.
  • Saying something like "You forgot to initialize that variable" might save you a few minutes, but it doesn't help the student
  • Try to get the student to see some unwanted consequence of that mistake
• Try making a mistake in what you say. See how long it takes for the students to catch it.
• You're walking a fine line between making a few mistakes and appearing stupid. Don't lose your students' respect.

Managing your students

• It's your job to keep an eye on your students
• Watch them in lecture, lab, and discussion section
  • Are they bored?
  • Are they lost?
  • Are they distracted?
• The four kinds of students
  • Smart
  • Bad
  • Not so smart
  • Totally lost
• Differences between lower division and upper division
  • Lower Division
    • Students don't know very much
    • So, it's really easy to answer their questions!
  • Upper Division
    • Students don't know as much as you'd expect
    • Background tends to be missing compared with your own school
    • Students ask more directed and pointed questions
    • Lots and lots of project classes
• Don't wait for the lost students to realize it. Talk to them as soon as possible
• If your students work in groups, make sure the groups are healthy
  • Sometimes one student gets by without doing any work
  • Sometimes friends learn the material together but can't work individually
  • Sometimes group members dislike each other
• Does one of your students seem to have some sort of learning disability or testing anxiety? Check out the Disabled Students Program (http://dsp.berkeley.edu)
• If your students trust you, they might tell you their problems
  • Be prepared to listen - this is actually quite an honor
  • You are probably not a qualified therapist, though
  • If their problems sound serious, refer them to Counseling and Mental Health Services (http://www.uhs.berkeley.edu/Students/Counseling/)

Motivating your students

• Things that kill motivation include:
  • Low grades on midterms
  • Fear of low grades on midterms
  • Bad professors
  • Bad books
  • Bad GSIs
  • Not wanting to be in the class
  • Dry, theoretical material
  • Material that isn't challenging enough
  • The EECS environment
• Things that you can do to help:
  • Counteract a bad professor or book by being friendly, helpful, and available
  • Be willing to listen to students when they have problems
    • Research indicates that students are more willing to ask for academic help when they think teachers care about them as people
    • Office hours may not always be the way to help students, so be willing to set up special appointments
  • Make things more fun
    • you can usually get away with some jokes
    • sometimes the department will pay for candy
    • give interesting examples, not just "foo" and "bar"
    • don't use words when pictures will do
  • If the professor discusses theory, discuss applications
  • If the professor discusses applications, discuss theory
  • Emphasize learning, not grades
    • Students who want to learn the material so they can show people they get it don't learn as well and don't ask for help
    • Students who want to learn the material so they can understand it learn better and ask for help when they need it
    • Together, you and the professor have a little bit of influence on why students want to learn

Reflection

• How are you doing?
• Tape your section and go over it with other TAs or prof
• Have another TA or prof visit your section and give you feedback
• Keep track of how many students come to section and how they do
• What could you be doing better?
• Does class time fly by or drag on?
• Keep a journal or teacher's portfolio of everything you use for class
• Read over all your lesson plans and emails
• Review how things went in the first section so you can make adjustments your second section.

Overall GSI tips

• Listen to your students!
  • Corollary: Learn their names -- it comes in handy later on.
• Practice makes perfect
• Make your students do all the hard work
• An ounce of preparation is worth a pound of flimflam
• Determine your availability. Create boundaries!
• NEVER give out your phone number or instant messenger account name.
• Avoid GSI burnout. You don't need to be the superhero every week.
• Know your resources
• You are a paid employee. The professor and the students are your bosses. Make sure you respect your responsibility and don't let your bosses down.
• You are not average.
  • You are a graduate student in one of the best universities in the country. Many of your students won't get this far.

Timing

Close your eyes for one minute, then open them. Notice how a minute is much longer than it seems. Give your students time to answer you questions. After asking, wait at least 30 seconds for people to answer the problem. Given that you know the subject and the answer to your question, and they know neither, they're going to need some non-trivial amount of time to figure it out.

Tact and Sensitivity Discussion

You are an authority figure whose words have significant impact on your students. If a students asks a "dumb" question, remind yourself that this student would not ask this question unless they did not understand the material, which should make you worry about the effectiveness of the course.

In this exercise, we'll come up with a list of words that could potentially be damaging psychologically to your students. As we come up with each, we'll discuss a situation in which it might arise and brainstorm tactful ways to resolve it.

CS301/EE301

• As first-time GSIs, all of you are required to sign up for CS301 (Computer Science) or EE301 (Electrical Engineering).
• The web site for this Computer Science version of this course is at http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs301. This term, the course will be taught by Mike Clancy.
• The web site for the EE version of this course is at http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ee301. This term, the course will be taught by Richard White.
• This course is fantastic!
  • Its goal is to create a community where teaching assistants can go to provide support for one another, foster discussion of ideas, offer suggestions, and accept complaints.
  • Each week's discussion section has a guiding theme, including running a section, how to be a great TA, preparation and time management, group learning, diversity, group management, and grading, testing, and cheating.

Department Resources

• In CS: Brian Harvey, Mike Clancy, Dan Garcia
• In EE: Richard White
• Other GSIs
• Your research advisor
• GSI Teaching and Resource Center (301 Sproul)
• Barbara Davis: Tools for Teaching
• In EE and CS: Michael David-Sasson (msasson@cs.berkeley.edu).
  • He schedules the rooms.
  • You can move your class to Soda or Cory if you talk to him before the term begins!

Before you go to lunch...

On an index card, write down one thing you've learned this morning, and one thing you still have a question about. Please turn these in to me before you leave for lunch.

GSI Dilemmas

Each of these scenarios may arise in your own sections. Get together in groups of 3-4 people, choose one of the dilemmas, and develop a skit to act it out. When we reconvene, each group will act out its skit, and the rest of the class will attempt to deconstruct the skit's meaning, and try to extract the lesson you were trying to get across.

1. Scenario It's a week before the final exam, and you receive and email from George, a student in your class who has been struggling. Going into the final exam, George is averaging a D- for the course. The email is as follows:

   Hey -

   I'm totally freaking out about this final, and I'm completely unprepared. I've been studying the material, attending review sessions, and I haven't slept in 3 days. If I fail this class, my parents are going to make me drop out of Berkeley. I'm really freaking out! Is there anything you can do?!?! I'm afraid I'm going to do something crazy if I don't pass this class. I think I'll just die.

   -George

   Dilemma Do you respond? If so, how?

2. Scenario It's a beautiful day outside, and all of your students are clamoring to go outside. You've prepared a relatively non-chalkboard intensive discussion for the day, and they're right -- it is beautiful outside. The students seem antsy, and it's time for discussion to begin.

   Dilemma What do you do?

3. Scenario You're at lecture, and the professor in the course has just made two factual errors in the same lecture that directly contradict the material you presented yesterday in section. You look around, and it's clear that your students appear puzzled/confused, but no one asks the professor to clarify. It's now the section after that lecture (with the two errors), and you students start the discussion by asking "What the hell was that? Professor X sucks rocks!"

   Dilemma What do you do?

4. Scenario It's a week after the first midterm, and you've met with the professor and your fellow GSIs to discuss overall performance. The average score in the class was 85%. Your students, on average, scored 60%. You are surprised and disappointed at their performance.

   Dilemma You have just walked into discussion section and everyone is asking how they did on the midterm. How do you reveal the news?

5. Scenario One of the groups in your section comes to you with a problem. The two of them say they cannot continue working with one another.

   Dilemma What do you do?

6. Scenario You're grading problem sets, and you notice that Lila and Jane's are identical except for the name at the top of the paper.

   Dilemma What do you do when you next see Lila and Jane in section?

7. Scenario It's the first day of section, and you notice one of your students has brought her boyfriend to class. During class introductions, she introduces him as "my sweet thing -- he's just coming with me to classes this first few weeks to be with me and see what it's like." This behavior continues on the 2nd day of section. And on the 3rd...

   Dilemma What do you do?

8. Scenario It's the middle of the discussion in the 2nd week, and one of your students asks you a question about a figure you just drew. While you know the answer to the question, you've just drawn a blank. The class is waiting for you to reply.

   Dilemma What do you do?

9. Scenario One of your best students, Kwok, comes to your office hours and tells you, "Dude, section's boring."

   Dilemma What do you do?

10. Scenario Pat is one of your best students: performs well on midterms, participates in discussions, and is likeable among classmates. Pat approaches you the week before the final, and asks you to write a letter of recommendation for graduate school.

    Dilemma What do you do? Why?

11. Scenario It's the 4th week of class, and section has been interrupted (in your interpretation), again, by a student who keeps asking questions that are beyond the scope of the class. The student is clearly brilliant, but the questions are messing up your rhythm.

    Dilemma What do you do?

12. Scenario After class, Susan asks to speak to you. She seems very nervous and won't speak above a whisper. She says that her lab partner has been sexually harassing her.

    Dilemma What do you do?

13. Scenario It's Saturday night, and you're out with your friends at the bar. You see one of your more attractive students dancing. The student notices you, comes over, and starts not so subtlely hitting on you.

    Dilemma How do you behave?

14. Scenario You are filling in for another GSI. About six minutes after the start of class, a student in the back says, "You suck! We want Anthony back!" Several students then say, "Yeah," and more nod.

    Dilemma What do you say or do to alleviate the situation?

15. Scenario You've just handed back midterms, and Ketan, one of your students who was not doing so well going into the midterm, performed very well as the result of increased study effort and attendance at your office hours. Ketan approaches you after class with open arms and big smile. You're happy for him.

    Dilemma What do you do?

16. Scenario You are walking around lab and you notice that one of your students is almost in tears. When you try to talk to her, she claims to be OK.

    Dilemma What do you say or do?

17. Scenario You've noticed for the past three discussion sections that Mike, one of your students, has been nodding off towards the end of class. Today, it's especially egregious, as Mike has fallen asleep within the first 10 minutes of class. It's now 15 minutes into the section, and students around Mike are clearly noticing.

    Dilemma What do you do?

18. Scenario One of the groups in your section comes to you with a problem. Out of three people, one of them has disappeared. They received an email one day saying, "Gone to L.A. Be back later." The project is due in 3 days and the student who disappeared has not done his part.

    Dilemma What do you do?

19. Scenario It's the middle of the discussion in the 2nd week, and one of your students asks you a question about a figure you just drew. You honestly have no idea what the answer is. The class is waiting for you to reply.

    Dilemma What do you do?

20. Scenario One day in section, you tell an annoying student in your class to just shut up and let other people answer the questions. Later, she comes to your office hours and tells you that she thought what you said was really rude and she feels hurt.

    Dilemma What do you do?

21. Scenario It's the first day of discussion, and in walks a co-worker from your summer job, Julia. You genuinely like Julia -- Julia's a good person. Julia comes up to you and says "Hey - it's so awesome that you're my GSI! That's great! This is going to be a good semester." 

    Dilemma What do you do?

22. Scenario It's the middle of the discussion in the 2nd week, and one of your students asks you a question about a figure you just drew. You know the answer. The question is a good one, but requires a level of understanding and knowledge that goes beyond the scope of the course. You think, however, that if you tried to explain it, that student could understand the basic idea. The class is waiting for you to reply.

    Dilemma What do you do?

23. Scenario A student comes to office hours and says "I don't undertsand anything," and appears to expect you to teach him the entire course again. It's the 9th week of the course and second midterm is next week.

    Dilemma What do you do?