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发信人: haven (避风港), 信区: AdvancedEdu
标  题: How to be a good TA(1)
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Tue May 12 21:43:57 1998)

                Becoming Teachers

    The Graduate Students' Guide to Teaching at Yale

Table of Contents

     Intro: What is Working at Teaching?
   1.The big picture: Some different ways to think about teaching and
     learning
          1.1 The Socratic method: Learning as remembering
          1.2 John Locke: The student as a blank slate
          1.3 John Dewey: The "facts" are in the interpretation
          1.4 The Reproduction model: Society as a function of
          education
          1.5 Where does this leave you?
   2.Entering the Yale teaching community: you, your students, your
     instructor
          2.1 You
               2.1.1 Students' expectations of you
               2.1.2 TA-Student relationships
               2.1.3 Resources available to TAs
          2.2 Your students
               2.2.1 Undergraduate studies at Yale
               2.2.2 Shopping period
               2.2.3 Yale College and the College system
               2.2.4 Students' other commitments
          2.3 Your instructor
   3.Preparing your first course meeting
          3.1 Setting pedagogical goals
          3.2 Establishing policies
          3.3 Exchanging information
          3.4 Building a group dynamic
          3.5 Beginning to teach the material
   4.The "nuts and bolts" of running a section
          4.1 Time management: Working 9 to 5 (and then some)
               4.1.1 Last resorts
               4.1.2 Job requirements
          4.2 Preparing for each week
          4.3 Basic skills and classroom mechanics
               4.3.1 Setting up the classroom
               4.3.2 Taking care of business
               4.3.3 Using the board, overhead projector, and other
               media
               4.3.4 Presenting theoretical and factual material
               4.3.5 Encouraging broad participation
               4.3.6 Managing "controversies" in the classroom
               4.3.7 Diversity in the classroom
   5.Leading sections in specific fields
          5.1 Discussion sections in the Humanities and Social Sciences
          5.2 Discussion sections in the Sciences
          5.3 Laboratory sections in the Sciences
          5.4 Sections focusing on problems sets or problem solving
          5.5 Language courses
          5.6 Discussion sections in appreciation courses - art, film and
          music
   6.Elements of teaching writing
          6.1 Teaching the writing process
          6.2 Combating writing problems
               6.2.1 Resources in Yale College
               6.2.2 Sensitivity toward writing anxiety
          6.3 Teaching scientific writing
               6.3.1 Lab reports
               6.3.2 Papers
          6.4 Responding to written work
          6.5 Acknowledging your students' work
   7.Elements of grading and evaluation
          7.1 Styles and strategies
          7.2 Mechanics of grading
               7.2.1 Grading fairly
               7.2.2 Grading written assignments
               7.2.3 Grading lab reports
               7.2.4 Grading exams and problem sets
          7.3 Other issues affecting grading
               7.3.1 Writing exams
               7.3.2 Grade "inflation"
               7.3.3 Late work
               7.3.4 Plagiarism and cheating
               7.3.5 Student performance and ways to help
          7.4 Letters of recommendation
   8.Continuing to teach and learn
          8.1 TA evaluations
          8.2 Classroom visits
          8.3 Your teaching file
          8.4 Teaching on your own
          8.5 Lecturing

     What is "Working at Teaching"?

     Working At Teaching (WAT) is a teaching assistant (TA) training
     program designed by graduate students for graduate students. The
     program consists of approximately six small workshops, each
     co-facilitated by two experienced TAs. WAT offers workshops in
     both the Fall and Spring semesters. The purpose of the program is
     to help TAs become well-prepared for their teaching experiences,
     and to this end, we organize the workshops around two broad
     goals.

     Our first goal is to help first-time TAs teach less self-consciously,
     and so our workshops discuss a wide variety of purely "practical"
     aspects of TAing-getting through the "first day," preparing for class,
     leading discussion, fielding questions, establishing and maintaining
     good relations with instructors, grading essays, exams and lab
     reports, and so on. Our second goal is to encourage TAs to teach
     more self-consciously, and so we also discuss models of pedagogy,
     the role of race, class and gender in the classroom, the relationship
     between our academic fields and the life-situtations of our students,
     and various field-specific topics. Because everyone's teaching
     situation is unique in some ways, the workshops are flexible enough
     to accommodate the specific concerns of participants as these arise.

     Working At Teaching's philosophy is pedagogical pluralism.
     Pedagogical pluralism is the idea that there is more than one way to
     teach effectively, and that we can and should discuss with our
     colleagues the consequences of adopting a particular teaching
     strategy.

     In keeping with the philsophy of pedagogical pluralism, the
     workshops help participants better articulate their preferred
     strategies to themselves, to their students, and to their colleagues.
     They also allow the variety of different ideas about teaching at Yale
     to be more easily discussed and exchanged, and the TA community
     at Yale to be strengthened.

     In addition to running workshops, Working At Teaching provides
     several support services for TAs. Our facilitators are available to
     visit a TA's section and discuss teaching strategies with him or her
     afterward. Our office maintains a growing file of materials on Yale
     courses regularly employing TAs, including letters from former TAs,
     syllabi, sample handouts, and examples of student papers. Finally,
     we regularly sponsor forums on issues of concern to TAs and the
     wider Yale community. Past forums have discussed sexual
     harrassment, grade inflation, and designing one's own course.

     Where we are

     The Working At Teaching office is located in HGS 125 (Phone:
     432-1198). During the year, the office will be open at regular times.
     We encourage you to stop by or call if you have any questions
     about the program, encounter any teaching issues or problems you
     would like to discuss with us, or want to use any of the program's
     resources (see "Resources available to TAs" below). We can also
     be reached on electronic mail at:
     Coordinator_WorkingAtTeaching@quickmail.yale.edu

     Where we came from

     Working At Teaching is the result of discussions in the Spring of
     1992 between the Executive Committee and faculty of the Graduate
     School and the Graduate Employees and Students Organization
     (GESO), regarding the long-standing need for substantive
     TA-training at Yale. As a result of those discussions, the 1992
     Executive Committee Report contained general provisions for the
     creation of a pilot TA training program to be designed during that
     Summer and implemented in the Fall. Former Associate Dean
     Robert Bunselmeyer, in cooperation with Victor Luftig, former
     Director of the Bass Writing Program, selected a group of fourteen
     experienced TAs to do so. The significant degree of autonomy given
     to the first staff in designing and implementing the program has
     become a hallmark of the organization. During the next two years,
     Working At Teaching teams provided workshops for over 160
     students each year, wrote and expanded this handbook, conducted
     classroom visitations, and sponsored several successful forums.

     How to use this handbook

     Becoming Teachers has been written for Yale graduate students at
     several levels. We intend for it to serve as a guide to teaching a
     Yale, with an emphasis upon presenting the advice and collected
     wisdom of present and past Working At Teaching staffs and
     workshop participants. The first edition of this guide collected
     stories, advice, and ruminations on teaching from Yale TAs. Since
     then, the guide has become more topical and declarative, but
     without losing, we hope, its base in TAs' experience. Any graduate
     student can use this handbook. It is meant to be used both by those
     who participate directly in the workshops, in conjunction with syllabi
     and agendas which workshop facilitators will distribute, as well as
     by students outside the program, even those who will not get a
     chance to TA while at Yale. (This last group might in fact find this
     handbook and even our workshops useful in anticipation of future
     teaching that they will do.) Feedback from any student will of course
     be welcome; in fact, we require your help in order to make our
     program and handbook serve your needs as a TA. We recommend
     that you also consult the Graduate School's Teaching Fellow's
     Handbook and Programs and Policies ("The Red Book") for further
     information such as job descriptions, pay levels, support services
     and so on. We hope you find this guide helpful. Like the program,
     Becoming Teachers is designed to change and grow as ideas about
     pedagogy at Yale do, and as new people become involved.
     Together, the handbook and the workshops are meant to further the
     exchange of a wide variety of ideas about what it means to work as
     a teacher at Yale.

--
世情推物理，人生贵适意，想人间造物搬兴废。吉藏凶，凶藏吉。

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