Building Better TAs

Useful Information for the Computer Science Department’s Awesome TAs

Current Lead TA

2023–2024 Lead TA:

TA Resources

UCSB Instructional Development Resources

Academic Student Employee Union

Teaching Philosophy Resources

Academic Integrity

Copyright

Sexual Harassment

CS 501

The purpose of CS 501 is to prepare the Computer Science Department TAs for teaching in the classroom environment. TAs are not expected to have any prior teaching experience thus this course will help them achieve confidence in the classroom, grade equitably and efficiently, teach to various learning styles and establish their personal teaching philosophies. The course is given to both students who will concurrently be TAing in the fall quarter and those who hope to, or expect to TA in future quarters. In addition some TAs will only be responsible for grading, some only for leading discussion sections, and others only for running labs. Therefore, the content of the course encompasses each of these areas. Due to the fact that some students of CS 501 will be concurrently TAing, more important topics are covered toward the beginning of the course.

Your participation will drive this seminar! Your questions, concerns and experiences will shape the topics and value of the course, so be involved!

Requirements

Schedule

Week 0

TA and Reader orientiation.

Slides

Week 1

Went over course structure and logistics. We discussed the Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating technique from the UCSB TA Handbook. We also demonstrated this technique with an in-class teaching example.

Slides

Week 2

We started by discussing implicit bias in teaching. We then discussed how to help students in need, and ended with an in-class activity for preventing and detecting cheating in CS courses.

Slides

Week 3

We discussed grading student work and grading rubrics with an in-class exercise on grading students’ submissions. We discussed different grading tools (particularly, Gradescope) and resources for how to write a teaching philosophy statement (due Dec 8).

Slides

Week 4

We discussed how to lead cooperative learning sections, and tips and techniques for effective board work.

Slides

Week 5

We discussed maintaining student confidentiality and went over FERPA regulations, with several in-class case studies.

Slides

Week 6

Students shared their experiences TA’ing or being TA’d.

Slides

Week 7

We talked about student-TA relationships, International TAs, and a review of the CCUT program.

Slides

Week 8

We talked about students with disabilities and how to create great presentations.

Slides

Week 9

Micro teaching demo day!

Slides

Week 10

We held an open house for feedback and suggestions for the TA training course.

Slides