Cranky part 1
Today I crashed. Hard.
I did not sleep much last night because I'd stayed up very late responding to emails with my fellow TA. We'd had a disagreement about an approach to teaching our sections. Our students have a big project coming up, and we have to instruct them on how to complete it. I wanted to take a more inclusive approach using different methods of delivering information, and had made a handout to give to the class that went through the sections of the assignment and provided examples/suggestions of how to approach it. I did this to help out some of my students with learning disabilities and to provide some answers to FAQs from the time I'd taught the class before in advance. Basically to proactively answer questions about the assignment to save email and office hours time later, since students tended to ask the same questions over and over.
The other TA said if students did not understand anything, she preferred to answer each email individually or meet with them in office hours, or wait for them to ask questions. She wanted to take a more hands off approach. Her biggest concern was that providing students extra suggestions is the same as making a contract, and that it obligates the students to do the assignment in a specific way, and then obligates us to grade it in a specific way as well.
We went back & forth, with me explaining that there is a difference between providing suggestions to a student to help them launch a project or simplify it vs. criteria upon which they will be graded. I tried also to remind her that undergrads spend much of their career taking multiple choice exams rather than writing like we do. Sometimes hints like "it's easier will be easier to do all of your later sections and stay with in the page limits if you choose only one issue of focus" are not quite as intuitive to an undergrad writer. Anyway, after about 3 emails back and forth, we came to a consensus. I did understand her concern about not wanting to spoon feed students too much. I think I err on the side of over-clarifying things that are not essential parts of the assignment. For instance, if the goal of the assignment is to learn how to evaluate and write a plan to improve discrimination in an agency--I don't think students should have to spend several hours trying to figure out how to format their reference list in APA style because it was unclear and they have not yet learned how to do that. It is not integral to their learning, and I am more than happy to spoon feed them how to format their references, so that they can focus on the important parts of the assignment. I want them to learn what I am there to teach them, rather than waste their time trying to decipher other things.
Anyway... I dunno... I think I knew what I was doing.
My students seemed appreciative, and I've already gotten more than one student emailing to ask for a copy/thank me for it.
Probably what was more annoying about the situation was that the other TA dismissed and argued that the handout that I was making was bad before she'd seen it.
I do know I have issues with trust. I get annoyed when people don't trust me. My policy is to trust people until they give me a reason not to. I know other people are not that way. But I think it bothers me when I consistently do things competently, and someone who knows it still treats me like I might suddenly not have a clue. I'm sure it's my ego. When it comes to competence, certainty, and the like... I do not do well with it.
I did not sleep much last night because I'd stayed up very late responding to emails with my fellow TA. We'd had a disagreement about an approach to teaching our sections. Our students have a big project coming up, and we have to instruct them on how to complete it. I wanted to take a more inclusive approach using different methods of delivering information, and had made a handout to give to the class that went through the sections of the assignment and provided examples/suggestions of how to approach it. I did this to help out some of my students with learning disabilities and to provide some answers to FAQs from the time I'd taught the class before in advance. Basically to proactively answer questions about the assignment to save email and office hours time later, since students tended to ask the same questions over and over.
The other TA said if students did not understand anything, she preferred to answer each email individually or meet with them in office hours, or wait for them to ask questions. She wanted to take a more hands off approach. Her biggest concern was that providing students extra suggestions is the same as making a contract, and that it obligates the students to do the assignment in a specific way, and then obligates us to grade it in a specific way as well.
We went back & forth, with me explaining that there is a difference between providing suggestions to a student to help them launch a project or simplify it vs. criteria upon which they will be graded. I tried also to remind her that undergrads spend much of their career taking multiple choice exams rather than writing like we do. Sometimes hints like "it's easier will be easier to do all of your later sections and stay with in the page limits if you choose only one issue of focus" are not quite as intuitive to an undergrad writer. Anyway, after about 3 emails back and forth, we came to a consensus. I did understand her concern about not wanting to spoon feed students too much. I think I err on the side of over-clarifying things that are not essential parts of the assignment. For instance, if the goal of the assignment is to learn how to evaluate and write a plan to improve discrimination in an agency--I don't think students should have to spend several hours trying to figure out how to format their reference list in APA style because it was unclear and they have not yet learned how to do that. It is not integral to their learning, and I am more than happy to spoon feed them how to format their references, so that they can focus on the important parts of the assignment. I want them to learn what I am there to teach them, rather than waste their time trying to decipher other things.
Anyway... I dunno... I think I knew what I was doing.
My students seemed appreciative, and I've already gotten more than one student emailing to ask for a copy/thank me for it.
Probably what was more annoying about the situation was that the other TA dismissed and argued that the handout that I was making was bad before she'd seen it.
I do know I have issues with trust. I get annoyed when people don't trust me. My policy is to trust people until they give me a reason not to. I know other people are not that way. But I think it bothers me when I consistently do things competently, and someone who knows it still treats me like I might suddenly not have a clue. I'm sure it's my ego. When it comes to competence, certainty, and the like... I do not do well with it.