Teaching

CSE 143 TA

I applied to become a intro-series TA during spring quarter of my freshman year, and was originally placed on the waitlist. However, as the next year drew closer, I was offered a position in CSE 143. I remember my first section vividly, along with all the embarrassing moments and mistakes. (For one, I heard the bell ring and assumed class was in session, only to find out 10 minutes into my introduction monologue that the bell was in fact marking the end of the previous class period – whoops!) After this experience, I was always a bit nervous walking into section. My main triumph of this first quarter was getting over this hump.

Now that I was comfortable being a TA, the next couple of quarters allowed me to improve my skills as an educator. This was a weird time to be a TA for 143, since it is part of the traditional two-course intro curriculum that was actively being replaced by a three-course standard. For that reason, the class was significantly smaller than when I had taken it, but this was also the perfect opportunity to test my skills. I originally thought that being a good educator boiled down to communicating effectively, but I came to realize that it requires strong interpersonal connections with your students. For the ones that regularly attended section and office hours, I was not only an academic mentor but a broader collegiate mentor, advising on things such as classes I've taken, TA application processes, and major decisions. It’s been great to see these students thrive after taking my class, with some of them even becoming TAs!

MATH 402/403

This artifact is less related to my own teaching experience, but more of a reflection on effective pedagogy within my own classes. Most math courses are part of a series stretching over a full year; the two classes I have listed here, MATH 402 and 403, are sequential courses in abstract algebra. Although the general content of the courses were the same, I had wildly different experiences taking them, mostly due to the differing styles of the two professors.

When I first looked at the Canvas course for MATH 402, I was annoyed by what looked to be weekly assignments that amounted to busywork. These assignments asked students to create a “MindMap” of the concepts learned that week, giving basic definitions and theorems and visually relating them to each other. However, I quickly realized that these assignments were incredibly useful for dealing with the large degree of abstraction in the course. This was a lesson to keep an open mind with pedagogical practices; something that seems redundant with my past experiences in the classroom can turn about to be an important scaffold for learning.

On the other hand, MATH 403 was more a lesson in how not to teach. This isn’t to say that my professor was a bad teacher – the content of the course was certainly difficult – but there were certainly quirks of their pedagogical style that made the class harder than it needed to be. Having put those two classes in contrast, I believe that I am better prepared for teaching my own class someday.

CSE 311

After four quarters of TAing for CSE 143, I switched into CSE 311 - another introductory course, but focused more on elementary logic and mathematical foundations. This was a welcome change for me, mainly because I hope to eventually teach more math classes. The associated course structure is a lot different from a programming class like 143, and a lot more of the actual “teaching” work is given to the TAs (there’s only so much you can cover in lecture). Even though I eventually got comfortable in 143, I can only describe teaching 311 as natural.

I was also a lot more involved in the course logistics, thanks to the professors’ delegation. One of my favorite TA tasks was being part of “content team,” where we devised homework assignments and exams for that quarter’s offering. This gave me a chance to add some fun questions from my own mathematical experiences, giving the students a taste of where this “mathematical” side of computer science could lead. I have attached one such problem as my artifact, adapted from I problem I completed in MATH 402.

After teaching for this class, I have a much better understanding of the inner workings of a course from the professor’s point of view. The skills and knowledge from this appointment will be paramount to the design of my own courses in graduate school.