Getting Better

It's only the third week of TAing for me, and things are already getting significantly better. We had the students fill out preliminary course evaluation forms, so we can see how good or bad of a job we're doing. The questions the forms asked were insufficient in showing that one was doing a good job - they asked the students if the instructor was encouraging the asking of questions, if they responded well to student requests for clarification, and if the instructor was organized and clear. You can present your materials clearly, encourage questions and answer questions as much as you want, but if you're not doing a good job of explaining the material in a way the students can easily understand, that doesn't make you a good teacher. And if you can't understand what parts of the material the students are struggling with, you're not doing a great job.

There was a spot for additional comments, though, and I asked the students be honest and give me comments that will help me improve my teaching. I gave a little mini speech: He goes too fast. He's doing a good job. He writes too small. Don't write, "He sucks." Write, "He sucks because..."

I got the evaluations back, and all of the comments were great. I was given the impression that I'm going over the problems clearly, that I'm very much improving their understanding of the material, that I make the class as fun as one can make a math course, and that they like me. So now I can relax a bit.

The combination of having a couple weeks of experience and knowing that I'm doing a good job has definitely made things easier. I still have a bit of a hard time in the beginning of the recitations, not knowing exactly how the professor covered the material and having to figure out exactly how to best help the students, but if I've already improved this much in two weeks, I'm sure I'll be excellent in a few more.

Before I started, I was really curious to see how it would turn out. Lately I've been thinking that I want to focus much more on teaching than research, as far as a career goes, and I was a bit apprehensive to see how teaching would actually go. The more and more time I spend with students, though, the more it's becoming obvious that this is what I want to do with my life. I can honestly say that I've gotten more out of the little bit of help I've given these students in the past three weeks than I've gotten out of the three semesters I've already done in grad school. And that makes me happy.

- Induced Homomorphism