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

You will be put into groups of no more than 6 people for a practice teaching session ("microteaching"). Please sign up for a problem below by putting your name under the appropriate column. (Sample sign-ups are shown below.) Within a group, each person should do a different problem. The problem statements can be found in the "handout" section below. Please email Agi if you have trouble signing up.

Microteaching is required for students teaching lecture subjects. If you are a lab subject TA and want a chance to practice, please see us - we may have a few additional slots available.

Before your session on Tuesday, please read the following two links on effective observation and feedback during microteaching:

• What to observe
• Constructive feedback

Problem #	Problem topic	Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
1	Free energy and ATP hydrolysis	prob 1, grp 1	prob 1, grp 2
2	Proton availability in a cell	prb 2, grp 1
3	Protein-ligand binding parameters				prb 3, grp 4
4	Biologically relevant redox
5	Conformational entropy
6	Metabolic network adaptation

Groups for Team-Building and Microteaching Sessions

Kerry W you may join either Group 1 or Group 3 (class assignment not yet definite)

Group 1: Jess H, Chris N, Emily O, Jeff Q, Kerry W
Group 2: Jim A, Kyle A, Tiffany C, Hsu-Yi L, Yvonne Y
Group 3: Maryelise C, Peter DM, Yang L, Jesse S
Group 4: Tim C, David H, Brandon R, Jessica T

Group 5: Christina B, Nicole C, Tyler DW, Bridget W
Group 6: Amneet G, Nathan K, Clarissa Z

Handouts and Links to Resources

Handouts

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

Team-building exercise (PDF) Microteaching introduction (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
  • Juniors and seniors in BE are available to tutor for many UG core classes.
  • Tutoring hours are typically set for each subject toward the beginning of the semester.
  • Tutoring occurs in the student lounge (56-046).
• 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 Content

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)
   • How do OH differ from recitations?
   • What strategies can make OH most effective?
2. Understanding undergraduate culture and managing your time (Bryan)
   • How to set limits with students behaving dependently.
   • Resources available for you and for your students.
3. Your role in detecting and curbing academic dishonesty (Edgar)
   • What you might encounter, what to do.
4. Contributing to course building and administration (Venky)
   • Preparing effective psets, solutions, and exam material.
   • Balancing biology-centric and engineering-centric content for students with different backgrounds.
   • Special sessions for introducing new programming modules (MATLAB, Python, PyMol etc) and pre-exam revisions.
   • Using the course websites as a communication platform and its effective maintenance
5. Potential recitation roadblocks (Jeff)
   • Dealing with gaps in your knowledge.
   • Helping weaker students without derailing recitation.
   • Engaging advanced students without dwelling on tangents.
6. TAing a lab class (Robbie)