My official title is Assistant to the Director of Mentoring and Retention. My work has varied from cleaning to keeping the Director sane to web site design to an in-class teaching assistant to mentoring to running a student group to grading. So far I haven’t had a significant amount of say in what work I will be doing.
This semester has been hell though with grading. I am grading, by hand, the quality of the code submitted (the equivalent of a grammar check on an essay) for the second semester programming course. This latest assignment is taking 20-30 minutes to grade each student and with 66 submissions I can feel my brain melt.
Because I’m having to use more mental and time resources than the Director expected when she signed me over to another prof, she has asked me what work I want to do my final semester. And the idea that I have in mind is very unusual.
We have 200 and 400-level independent study credits. For several years, excluding last year, there has been a group independent study in the spring with students from both the 200 and 400 level. This is led by the Director and usually another faculty member with approximately 10 students. The purpose being to do undergraduate research as a group or groups and practice presenting findings in the spring poster session.
I have asked to be the teacher for this course next semester.
I know that at some point of my academic career I will be a lab/recitation teaching assistant. Between my social anxiety and attention deficit, I can honestly say that teaching will be difficult for me. So, I want practice first. The group study seems like a good place to get my feet wet.
- No preset agenda.While I enjoy structure when learning, it will take some coaxing to keep me from going on a tangent.
- Minimal grading compared to normal TA work.
- Encouraging creativity and critical thinking. I’m passionate about learning; creative and critical thinking are fantastic skills for others to develop.
- Writing reports and researching literature are two of my strongest skills which I can teach to others.
- Small group size. Less people means less anxiety.
The Director approves of this suggestion. Now, we just need to know whose approval we need for me to do something that’s never been done before by a graduate student, let alone an undergrad.
Tags: ADD, anxiety, classes, Goal, students, teaching styles, Work
