TA suggestions

First off, welcome to UCLA. You'll find UCLA to be many wonderful things that you did not expect, and many other things that you would NEVER hope for. Life as a new graduate student can be hard, and when you compound onto that the sometimes daunting (most often taunting) task of also being a TA, it's enough to drive you postal. But to help you off, I've prepped to be what I think are the 3 steps to perfecting the art of teaching, plus 3 hints that will help you immensely.

First off, let's start with the helpful hints.

• FIRST MAKE THE MOST OF THE TA TRAINING SEMINAR, CS495. The UCLA CSD is very lucky to be awarded funds from the university to run a 495 class which is mandatory for all new TA's. Basically it is a course designed to step you through teaching. It's a combination of group therapy, psychology, presentation and speech training. The 495 experience can either work to your advantage, or it can be the most boring and painful 20 hours of the quarter. Fortunately, the CS495's are very flexible and the TAC (the dept. head TA who runs the course) have (at least in the past) been very accomodating to make the class fit what you most need, and deal with issues that are important, and that may or may not be known to you. How do you make the most of it? Well, CONSTANTLY ASK QUESTIONS, if something seems meaningless, ASK why it is in the course, basically be a pest to make the class give you whatever it is that you think you need. If nothing else, enjoy the food and company, and hopefully you will hear some very interesting stories..
• SECOND TALK ABOUT LIFE GOOD AND BAD Well Life here is school, since in some parts of the department, there is no distinction between the two, (the department is mother, the department is father -(any Babylon 5 fans out there???)) ß - look I closed off all my parenthesis's. :> Basically as things go good or bad, (especially when they go bad) talk about them. You have lots of people to talk to. Issues with specific students or advice about how to handle a particular student, you should talk to the professor teaching the course, if you are uncomfortable, or are unable to establish a working relationship with the professor of the course, talk to the TAC, he or she will mediate (at least that's what I used to do when I was TAC..) If worse comes to worse, talk to other TA's oh and NOT just for being a TA, ALWAYS talk to Verra. :> (Always offer to help Verra too, if you are mean to her, the older grad students will beat you up (or at least move your furniture outside during pigeon migrating season)).
• FINALLY GET FEEDBACK WHENEVER POSSIBLE. Normally the method for feedback here at UCLA are these evaluation forms that you are required to have your students fill out at the end of each quarter. Basically they are hard to get back, because they take FOREVER to get back. I didn't get to see my first quarter evaluations until 1.25 years later. It's totally unacceptable. To overcome this, I always do a few things. I harrass (well I try to talk to) my students if I see them in the hallway, or on other parts of campus, or hanging out in the SEAS CAFÉ (which is in 5800W Boelter Hall). Second, whichever student volunteers to take in the evaluation envelope, I make them also volunteer their e-mail address so that other students can e-mail to them their comments and opinions of the class. I ask the volunteer student to text edit them together, and strip out the header so the e-mails are anonymous, and presto, I have timely evaluations that I can use before the next quarter. Remember the best TA's (in the eyes of most students) are the ones who they feel actually care.

Now that the helpful hints are out of the way, let's talk about what the 3 secrets of PERFECTING THE ART OF BEING A T.A.

• FIRST AND FOREMOST, DECIDE ON A TEACHING STYLE YOU ARE VERY COMFORTABLE WITH. What's a teaching style, and what are your options? Well think back to your undergrad days, and remember what TA's and Professors were like to you. Think about what you disliked and what you liked. Think about what you wished they would do for you, and what you wished they wouldn't do for you. Basically from your own experience make yourself be your own best TA. DO NOT EXTEND THE CYCLE OF HATE. Just because YOU had bad TA's and Professors, do not inflict the pain and suffering. Especially here at UCLA, where some students are really on the edge, and where during one class while I was TAC, I had to get up and stand inbetween a student and one of my TA's because the student was about 10 seconds from throwing a punch. (I've had my own ways of getting even with bad TA's when I was an undergrad, but statue of limitation laws prevent me from devulging more details but man that boom sounded out through the entire bottom floor of Kinsey).
• SECOND, ADAPT THE IDEAL TA TO YOUR CLASSES AND STUDENTS. Often times here you will be teaching the same class over and over again, but you may find that the classroom dynamic changes drastically quarter to quarter. MOST UGRAD students do not know or recognize the UCLA mission policy of preparing you for GRAD school. UCLA is mostly a theoretical school, BUT most of the students here think they are getting an education which will prepare them for a job, (soooo wrong.) They get very frustrated by this, they get very disinterested in classes because of this, and they generally can make the classroom a very unpleasant place to be. This goes back to my above hint of getting feedback. And also of giving feedback, sometimes adapting doesn't mean changing, it means explaining to students why it is that you do what you do in the way that you do it.. (but this should be something better than "I AM ALMIGHTY AND YOU ARE JUST A NUMBER). Me personally, I've had classes where everyone was interested in the material (or at least 90% of the class) so I would bring stuff in from outside and go over amusing anecdotes, talk about architectural history, and conflicts in industry, and then I've had other classes where I needed to ground and justify every concept being taught. There are some classes where I did not need to have official office hours because students were free to call me at home (and boy did they ever, it really bugged my girlfriend at the time when students would call during dinner), and others where the students had to have office hours because they were afraid of the phone.
• FINALLY, MAKE SURE WHEN YOU TEACH, YOU KNOW THE MATERIAL AND GOALS OF THE CLASS. Students of all types (interested, disinterested, confused, hormonal, homocidal) all respond well when they can see the big picture, and know what to expect. So signposting in the class, ie telling them what they will get from each class, how the material fits together, and why it will be important in a future class is a REALLY good thing. But, it's hard to say what the goal is or how the material fits into anything without knowing the material yourself

I hope your experience here at UCLA is a good one, and if you made it to the end of this page, I'm doubly proud of you.. Being a TA here at UCLA can be really rewarding, for me, I think it was made rewarding when I was in Vegas at a gas station, and I heard a voice calling my name. I turned around and it was one of my old students with a bunch of his co-workers. He introduced me to his co-workers and boss, and talked about me and my class. I was surprised to be remembered much less praised.. In my eyes, that experience alone has made my TA experience worthwhile..

Oh one more really amusing story, There was this one student, who before taking my class, she had a perfect 4.00 GPA. She had 2 quarters to go before graduating, and in my class she got her first A- The next quarter I saw her in the hallway, and she stopped to chat with me (very friendly still), and then mentioned that she was getting a gun liscense and was going to buy a gun Several more times through the quarter, she mentioned this to me also.. She even one time brought me a target she had shot up.. (NO it wasn't a picture of me)

Hmmmm. There is one more story that I really want to tell, it's a tale of amorous activities by students during one of my classes, but I don't think the department would aprove, even if I edit it down to a G rating, but if you catch me in the hallway, ask me and I'll tell you the sordid details..