Section 4 Teaching Assistant’s Guide to Good Problems
This guide is for the teaching assistant, who runs the recitations. It lists those tasks that the teaching assistant must perform, indicates when they must be performed, and estimates the time required. If the course is taught without recitations, then these tasks fall on the instructor.
The first time you use this method, there are extra tasks, which we list first.
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Read and understand the material in this packet. This should be performed in the week before the term starts. Time required: 2 hours.
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Attend training. The instructor should provide some training during the week before the term starts. Time required: 1 hour.
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Deal with unanticipated problems. Time required: 2 hours.
Each time the method is used there are the following tasks.
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Prepare for the new skill to be taught that week. It may also be useful to review the old skills. This is part of the weekly preparation time. Time required: 5 minutes per week.
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Present difficult skills in the recitation. Sometimes students will have particular difficulty on some specific skill. The teaching assistant will need to re-explain this skill and perhaps demonstrate it on a relevant problem. It is important to note that the teaching assistant is not expected to be the main teacher of these skills. The handouts should provide all the information the students need. Time required: 5 minutes recitation time per week, on average.
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Grade the good problems. It seems fair to grade two less regular homework problems to compensate for the good problems. After some initial trauma, it is expected that the good problems will be more pleasant to grade than ordinary problems. There should be no net gain in grading time as a result of this.
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Provide feedback on the handouts. Any deficiencies in the method or the handouts should be noted. At the end of the term these comments should be collected by the instructor and the materials corrected. Time required: 1 hour.
