2nd TA
I had the second session as a TA. It wasn't too bad, but we were running out of an interesting questions to discuss about. It would sound like an excuse (because it is!), but one of the reason seems to have been that students and I were less excited about the particular topic, which was the demographic impact of the Black Death in C14, and (to a lesser extent) its cultural impact.
Yet, I got to remember almost everyone's name now. I managed my preparation well, and spent only less than 3 hours.
It was still difficult to make everyone engage in the discussion. This seems to be a very difficult thing. It's just impossible when you are worried about how to direct the discussion.
There are four girls and eight guys in the discussion group. It seems to me that girls are a bit more confident in discussion than some of the guys. I don't know what kind of obserbation to make on this. Shall I endorse a popular claim that 'girls are great'?
posted by Koji @ 10:03 am
3 comments
3 Comments:
koji, you know my research is on higher education, therefore reading your thoughts about teaching is interesting to me.:)
two advice here. a shakespeare tutor i know once told me a useful piece of advice: when teaching at a seminar, try to direct, but not lead the discussions. I think this is very important. Also, when I was training to teach English to adults, my tutor said 'let the students talk, do not just lecture the whole time.'
All the best.
I teach maths undergrads. It's got to be way different from what you do, but yes, getting people to talk is really hard. Especially the guys (this is a terrible generalisation but it's what I notice).
Hi Richard,
Thank you for the comment!!! I will see how it goes next time!
KOJI
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