MIT BE TA-Training-2009

Agenda

Day 1: Monday, August 31st

Monday, August 31st in Room 56-614

Time	Event	Speaker(s)
<9:00 AM	Light breakfast
9:00-9:05	Welcome and definition of goals	Doug Lauffenburger
9:05-10:00	Defining expectations	Agi Stachowiak and John Essigmann
10:00-10:10	Coffee
10:15-11:15	Microteaching demonstration, introduction to microteaching topics and team-building exercise	Interactive
11:15-12:30	TA discussion panel and Q & A	Robbie Barbero, Rachel Miller, Bryan Owens, Edgar Sanchez, Venky Soundararajan, Jeff Wagner
12:30 PM	Lunch

Day 2: Tuesday, September 1st

Tuesday, September 1st in Room 56-614

Microteaching sign-up to be added... required for students teaching lecture courses. May have a few slots available for lab subject TAs, but won't be mandatory.

Problem #	Link to problem statement	Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
1		grp 1, prob 1	grp 2, prob 1
2				grp 2, prob 3
3
4
5
6

Handouts and Links to Resources

Handouts

Final versions will go here and hardcopies will be available at the session.

Team-building exercise (PDF)

Links

Teaching Resources

• School of Engineering TA Page
• Teaching and Learning Lab
  • Room 5-122; 253.2850
  • See especially Teaching Recitations and The Torch or the Firehose under Teaching Materials

Helping Students

Please do not hesitate to talk to the faculty member(s) teaching your subject if you encounter an extraordinary situation – you are not expected to shoulder the brunt of student difficulties. For your reference, some resources for students (that includes most of you, in fact!) are below.

• Student Support Services
  • Room 5-104; 253.4861
  • Students who are experiencing academic or personal difficulty can be referred to the S³ office.
• Resource List 1
• Resource List 2
• BE Tutoring Service
  • Tutors are available for many UG core classes. More details soon.
• Office of Minority Education
  • Room 4-113; 253.5010
  • OME offers a tutoring service open to all students by appointment.
• Disabilities Services Office
  • Room 7-145; 253.1674
  • Note that faculty should be the primary contact for working with the DSO; this link is provided in case you need additional support or information.

TA panel discussion space

Draft Topics for TA Panel

Initial note from Agi: Here's what John and I envision for now: Each TA will lead a discussion topic, but not be limited to speaking only about it of course! There will be a completely open Q&A from the audience at the end, and questions can be also taken intermittently (per topic) to keep things interactive from the start. Feel free to be as creative as you want, e.g., if you want to include a skit or demo of sorts. However, we understand that your time is limited. Thanks for participating!

The following discussion topics are adapated from the 5.111 Boot Camp as well as from past departmental TA trainings.

1. Making good use of office hours. (Rachel spoke well about this last year)
   • How do OH differ from recitations?
   • What strategies can make OH most effecitve?
2. Managing your time, in and out of the classroom.
   • How to set limits with students behaving dependently.
   • Resources available for you and for your students. (Make handout! (Agi will do))
3. Potential recitation roadblocks.
   • Dealing with gaps in your knowledge.
   • Helping weaker students without derailing recitation.
   • Engaging advanced students without dwelling on tangents.
4. Your role in detecting and curbing academic dishonesty.
   • What you might encounter, what to do.
5. And/or others as proposed by panel members…

Another thought: perhaps there are some BE-specific topics to cover, such as balancing biology-centric and engineering-centric content for students with different backgrounds. Oh, and something else to cover that came up last year is MIT undergraduate culture. AgiStachowiak 08:52, 20 August 2009 (EDT)