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Teaching Assistant Reminders Teaching Assistant Reminders

1.

Check out keys for office and lab in departmental office (Room 2420).
2.

Fill out payroll and insurance forms in Room 2440 by August 31 for September 1 coverage.
3.

Check out lab equipment from Room 1533. Perform lab inventory check of all equipment in lab room,
including cabinets. If any item needs repair, bring to Room 1536 immediately. Check lab supplies and
replenish if needed.
4.

Check out book for course (desk copy), if needed from Room 2414 EH.
5.

Read the Guide for Electrical and Computer Engineering and Lab Policies and Procedures handouts.
6.

Meet with course or lab supervisor and complete the TA Advisory Appointment Worksheet together.
Return worksheet to Jim Barner before end of first week of school.

Helpful Hints

1.

See the professor in charge of the course or laboratory you are teaching as soon as possible. Be sure you
are clear on your role in course and goals of course. Meet with the professor regularly throughout the
semester.
2.

Office Hours and Other Activities: Arrange to hold office hours at convenient times. Spread these
hours on different days and times to accommodate students. Number of office hours per week will be
dependent on teaching assignment. Arrange to hold problem solving sessions, tutorials, demonstrations
and/or review sessions. Check with professor supervising course.
3.

Teaching:
a)

Be firm, helpful, fair and clear.
b)

Assume confident attitude by being prepared for class, lab or session: Practice.
c)

Vary your presentations and style.
d)

Make it fun for yourself and the students be enthusiastic and interesting.
e)

Encourage feedback and give positive feedback.
f)

Treat students with respect.
g)

We need teachers. Think about it as a profession.
4.

Grading:
a)

Check with your supervising professor on policies; keep records; be prepared to answer
questions related to grades. Dont be afraid to give grade deserved.
b)

Incompletes, grade changes see page 2 of Guide for ECE.
c)

In laboratories-
1)

Give deadlines, requirements, and penaltiesbe definite and stick to it. Be clear about
what is required (especially in lab reports).
2)

No retakes or extra work for credit.
3)

Not all students are As or Bs. If a student is clearly way below norms, he/she should
get a C, D, or F.
4)

Often the lab is designed to teach measurement theory and technique for engineering
practice by way of preparation, analysis and report. Dont rely only on final exams for
the gradeyou should have a component of lab technique and performance in your
grade.
5.

Use fast feedback forms and mid-semester evaluations.
6.

Laboratory:
Be prepared! Run through the equipment before the lab session to avoid embarrassing problems.
7.

All Courses:
Work at being enthusiastic. It may wear off on some of the students who arent really interested.
Relate topics to real world and other disciplines. Characteristics of Good Teachers

Good teachers master their subjects.
Good teachers have a passion for their fields and they convey it.
Good teachers are organized, prepared, and especially clear in presentation.
Good teachers know their students as individuals, care about them, and, within limits, listen to
them.
Good teachers create a positive environment for learning, for asking questions, and for freedom
to grow and change.
Good teachers ask a lot of their students, challenge them, have demanding expectations.
Good teachers are able to relate abstract ideas to the realities of everyday life.
Good teachers appreciate that part of their job is to teach people how to learn.
Good teachers invent ways for students to become active rather than passive learners.
Effective teachers enlist their colleagues and all the staff to become collaborators in the
enterprise of teaching.
Teachers learn from their mistakes, design feedback mechanisms, and continually experiment
with ways to improve.
Good teachers are interesting people and have fun.

By Professor Thomas E. Cronin, On College Teaching, delivered at the Third Annual Lilly Conference on the
College Teaching (Lake Arrowhead, California March 3, 1991). Constructive Criticism for the Faculty and Staff
at the University of Wisconsin, Madison


I've been a student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison for six years now. (That's including two
semester and two summer co-op assignments.) After years of listening to friends, as well as living the
ECE experience, I feel that I can offer some constructive criticism to the faculty and staff at our
renowned university. This article is modeled after a handful of professors who have had a profound
effect on my life.

Give the classroom a professional atmosphere.
Don't make a party out of class. Stick to task at handconveying the day's material to the students.
This is not to say that occasional humor is not a good thing. Use of effective pauses is important; it
gives the class a chance to catch up.
Don't come to lecture unprepared and read the book to the class. Students will read the book on
their own time, to enhance the lecture.
Prepare at least one example for lecture. A carefully chosen example can clarify an abstract point
(i.e., a picture is worth a thousand words.) But remember, examples are most effective when the
lecturer can work all the way through without getting hopelessly stuck. This situation is embarrassing
for the lecturer and can lead to loss of credibility.

Don't erase too soon.
Never erase what you've just written! One of the most frustrating things experienced by students is
having the chalk board erased before they get a chance to write down all the information. If there are
three panels of chalk board available, use all three before going back to the first and erasing.

Make effective use of chalk board space.
Don't stand in front of what you've just written. Write, then move aside to give students time to copy
down the information.
Don't write too small, or cram too much in a small space. Write large enough for the whole class to
see. Be neat and write carefully.
Don't go back and write more on an already full panel. Go to the next panel in the rotation, erase
and start with a clean space.
Don't write on the bottom of the board. Students who aren't in the front row can't see the bottom of
the board.

Overheads and Handouts
Lecturers who use overheads tend to remove the transparencies before the students get a chance
to copy down all the information. This is like the "Don't erase too soon" scenario. Furthermore, studies
show that for effective learning, the student must hear the material spoken, see it being written, and
write it themselves. (I learned that in Motivation class.) This means that prepared transparencies
should never be used to present information that you want students to retain. The same applies to
handouts.

Handouts should be used as informational only, not to teach. They are effective when used to
supplement a lecture or to present tables of information one needs to complete homework. Handouts
are very helpful when presented a lecture early to be covered at a later date. This gives students an
opportunity to study the material before being lectured on it.
Ask questions.
not the rhetorical kind; those go in one ear and out the other. Students get used to hearing
questions posed by the professor, knowing that they aren't really expected to answer them. Students
will take an active rather than a passive role in a classroom where the professor poses questions that
can be answered by students, and waits for a response. If students don't respond, urge a response.
Don't be shy. Put students on the spot. Formulating answers in class, rather than being pencil-
wielding recording robots, immensely improves the student's retention rate.

Avoid loud, distracting noises in the classroom
There is some type of drilling work that goes on in the ECE building while classes are in progress.
This noise is so loud that the person teaching the class often has to wait until the noise stops and
then resume teaching or yell to be heard above the racket. Needless to say, this makes a very poor
learning atmosphere.

Homework
Don't be lazy!! Design homework problems that can't simply be copied from last year's or last
semester's homework se