PHY-211 General Physics I
Spring 2017 Teaching Assistant
Course Description
This course is emphatically not a class where students come to lecture, sit there and listen to a presentation of some facts, and then repeat them back to me on exams. The laws of mechanics are very simple, and students could memorize them in an hour if they wanted. The challenging aspect of this class is the application of those principles to understand the motion of physical systems – to take the principles of nature and, using mathematics as a tool, synthesize them into an understanding of how a particular system behaves. Students are not going to be learning a list of currently-accepted facts; they are going to be practicing skills and learning to see the universe as scientists see it. (From PHY-211 Syllabus provided by Dr. Freeman, Spring 2017)
My Role and Responsibility
PHY-211 is a general course for first year students. As one of the 8 teaching assistants, I am responsible for three sessions. Each session has about 25 students. Basically, I need to hold two recitations for each session per week.
I learned a lot teaching strategies and classroom management skills from the instructor and the experience of maintaining my TA responsibilities, especially in leading recitation sessions.
The following details my role and responsibilities in facilitating students to learn:
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Independently leading six recitation sessions per week for the whole semester
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Grading assignment: the evaluation of students’ assignments strictly follows the grading rubric for group research project
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Mentoring and assisting undergraduate students during my office hours
TA Evaluation
At the end of this semester, students from these three sessions evaluated my TA performance anonymously. The chart below showed average score on each aspect of performance. I value each student’s evaluation and feedback very much, and it’s their several lines comments made my TA work and teaching skills worthwhile.
