Washington University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

TA Teaching Tips
Sample Lessons And Exercises From Experienced TAs

Washington University is committed to the highest-caliber undergraduate education and graduate training.  To these ends, the GSAS has developed summer fellowships and workshops to enhance graduate student professional development, including use of technology in classroom teaching.  We are fortunate to have excellent teaching assistants who recognize technology's valuable role in teaching.  These experienced TA's have agreed to share some of their ideas and insights on using technology to enhance teaching.  Their comments show that technology can be used to enhance every facet of the classroom experience: to enhance discussion and participation, to teach critical thinking skills, to reinforce new skills,  to extend the scope of the traditional classroom, and how to trouble shoot problem that may arise when teaching with the web.

Using The Web To Enhance Discussion And Participation
 

David Callon, English, 2000
The course site is a great space for discussion overspill, particularly in a rapid-paced course which cannot afford to dally too long on any one text or subject, however interesting the discussion may be.  I like to encourage students with additional thoughts and ideas to take them to a discussion board of some kind.  This has a way of getting those students who find it difficult to speak up in class a chance to use their voice--I always hear good responses about this on the evaluations.  Be warned though: if you do not make it a habit to show up regularly on the discussion board and refer to it often in class, the students will have a tendency to forget about it altogether.

Gavin Chan, Earth and Planetary Sciences
One idea for a course-integrated web assignment is to assign each student a topic that will be covered during the semester.  Each student will be asked to spend about 30 to 45 minutes (at home or in a computer lab at their own time) to find out what sites or information on his/her assigned topic are available on the Web.  The student will then select 3 sites that he/she considers are the most informative and educational, and he/she will write a brief (3-5 sentences) annotated summary of each site. The student then submits his/her Web sites and summaries to the class Web page, via e-mail.  So the class Web page will have a section consisting of topics that will be covered in class, and related resources selected by students.  Before the day that I will cover a particular topic, I will ask the students to visit those sites to prepare themselves for class (in addition to reading assignments).  On the day of the topic, I will begin by asking the students what they have learned from the web, and perhaps asking the student responsible for that topic to summarize what he/she has learned, and that will be a good lead-in for my lecture and discussion.

Jennifer Romney, English
For discussion-based classes, the Web would work well as a means of getting the students to think about whatever issue is at hand and as a means of getting them to activate whatever knowledge/ideas they may already have about that issue, thereby elevating the level of discussion.  I think it would be particularly useful in furthering an approach I've tried to take (with mixed results) in discussion classes:  decentering classroom authority by having a student (or more) begin the class discussion by posing a question or a problem about the text.  By having the student(s) post these questions prior to the class s/he leads, the other students could obviously prepare better for the discussion and consider additional question, problems, etc; additionally, doing so would (one could hope) help the instructor by letting her/him know in advance what the lead-off question might be (sometimes extra time in deciphering it/determining its relevancy is crucial.  Along those lines, and depending on how the course meets, posted questions could also be used as a sort of guided-class prep, again decentering authority while still allowing time to connect issues that both the instructor and the students want to approach.

Virginia Braxs, Romance Languages and Literatures
In my Spanish conversation classes, every week, I ask my students to read on-line newspapers from Latin America and Spain (I usually give them addresses of Web sites), and they have to pick one or two news pieces that are interesting and present them to the class, in Spanish, every Friday (which is news day).  The benefit of this activity is that it keeps them motivated and talking, and since they are working on current events, they have the tendency to follow the news and to report further about it the next class.  Usually, they keep reading the newspapers and they even start looking for cartoons, and other sections, like movies or sports.  It is a great tool for my teaching at this level, where you have to keep students talking all the time without running out of subjects!  This activity helps my students to develop their oral, reading, and comprehension skills in Spanish.

Using The Web To Teach Critical Thinking Skills
 

Matt Devoll, English
". . . I'm quite optimistic that the Web will make the liberal arts (and language arts in particular) more vital than ever.  The liberal arts is in the business of teaching analysis and interpretation of human expression, which begins with taste and discrimination and from there becomes more rigorous in its demands for argument.  The information age gives us more information to process, but I doubt the brain has evolved to the point of actually absorbing more information than ever before.  We may process and value information differently, but the information age happens in cyber-space, not inner-space.  The point of which is that teaching analysis and interpretation of expression will become even more crucial as more and more expression confronts us every day.  I see the Web as an invitation to the liberal arts to step up to the challenge of teaching people how to read information, and read it well.

Christy Auston, English
My idea is to have each student discover a Web site related to women's issues, evaluate the site for content, clarity, interest, etc., and then make the case (in bulletin board discussion) to the rest of the class that the site is worthy of linking as a resource to the course Web page.  The other students would have to agree (via informal voting process) that the site is worthy of inclusion, and then I would link it on.  As an instructor, I of course would retain ultimate veto power to include or exclude a site, though I don't anticipate much of a problem there, actually. The idea is to get them to feel some commitment/engagement with internet resources by treating the course Web page as their own "space," and I hope in the process we can spark some discussion of the usefulness of the Web as a space for political action/discussion, etc.

Debra Rudder, English
An idea for a Web activity has to do with exactly the question of evaluating and analyzing the things our students find on the Web.  There are several steps involved in this activity, for which there would be separate deadlines.  First, each student would be responsible for going out into the limitless domain of cyberspace and locating some sort of text or running debate that they'd like to discuss.  They would be looking for a text of some sort that we could all eventually access, and hopefully, one which addresses a specific, somewhat controversial issue.  (My hope is that by asking for a text, not just a topic, we'd actually have something to evaluate besides their own opinions.  For example, a student might find an article on recent debates about abortion, not simply the topic of "abortion.")  Then, they would each post what they found and we'd eventually choose a text and issue to evaluate.  Then, I'd divide the class in half, assigning each half one side of the issue or the other.  Then, in an on-line discussion, I'd want them to debate the issue, devising various arguments and also responding to the arguments of the original text and of the other students in the course.  Each person would be responsible for responding at least once, but hopefully, they'd want to respond to others who had responded to them.  Ideally, they would all put some thought into the logic of their arguments and the others going on in the discussion.  This exercise would challenge them not only to consider issues of logic, but also to consider issues of audience and tone.  The issue of tone seems as though it could be a bit trickier in this medium than in the classroom (and also a bit more liberating than in face-to-face debates).  An exercise of this kind could enhance instruction about arguments, about how to construct them and evaluate them, in relation to topics they find interesting.

Using The Web To Reinforce New Skills
 

Cara Lewis, Movement Science
Having a practice multiple choice biomechanics quiz on line would be very helpful.  Sure, one could print off the old tests and go through those.  But the old tests already have the answers marked and the explanations right there.  It takes far more discipline than most have to actually "take" the practice exam vs reading through the answers.  And anyone who has taken Calculus or Physics lately knows that there is a huge difference between reading the answers and actually doing the problems.  Setting up such a web activity would allow the student to quiz himself or herself without having to cover up the answer.  The online quiz could then (assuming someone can show me how to program it) give the student feedback, not only on what questions they got right or wrong, but also what general topic they need to review for that question.

Shelly Schrappen, Germanic Languages and Literatures
My grand scheme is to have a heading for each chapter (e.g. "Chapter 1") that would link the students to a page of Web activities corresponding to the grammar and cultural topics of that chapter.  In the introductory chapter, the students learn how to say sophisticated things like "My name is _______" and "What is your address?"  One of their activities would be then to send each other virtual postcards.  I found a site that allows one to pick a postcard picture from among several of beautiful Rodgau, Germany (another activity might be to find Rodgau on a map!).  This activity would reinforce what the students have learned in the first few days of class--greetings, introductions, addresses--in a fun way.

Joseph Dreher, Asian and Near Eastern Language and Literatures
In terms of ideas for my own web exercise, I'd like to have some sort of interactive exercise with the course readings.  Perhaps this would be a quiz to test the students' comprehension of the salient features of a particular reading.  I envision it as directing/re-directing the students' pre-lecture preparation and test preparation.  A student would do this before class and then review it for tests.  Perhaps students could review particular web sites (among those I have verified are edifying and accurate) and make class presentations.

Using The Web To Broaden The Scope Of The Classroom
 

Robin Stephens, Biology and Biomedical Sciences, 2000
I think the biggest challenge for a college level course web page is that it actually add to the quality of the learning going on.  The main thing that the web has improved in my mind is accessibility of information, so it is a great tool for ease of access to references (of course some of them are wrong, but then again, all textbooks have a reference point as well--see lack of women and "minorities" in history).  I think that it is pretty good for images as well, much easier and more accessible than a slide show or making color copies.  Web workbooks and exercises may replace workbooks on paper, and it's cheaper to make and distribute new editions, but until all students have computers in their homes or dorms..., basing your course's work too much on the web might just be an added work burden, for many would have to spend more time in public labs (increasing disparities among various student populations)
     As a solution, I would propose that any use of Web activities to complement your course should be very interactive and image-heavy in a way that could not be done without a computer or make use of the many databases and "reams" of information out there on the web."

Karen Kroeger, Anthropology
Here's an idea for having students interact across social contexts.  (One of my concerns about the Web is that access is still limited to the relatively few of us in the world who can afford the technology.)  For instance, I know of a church sponsored community center where inner-city teens are learning computer skills.  I'd like to find some way that students at Wash. U. for example, could participate in a discussion group with kids like these and perhaps work together to solve a problem or complete a project.  Maybe we could do some mutual on-line ethnography and data collection.  The potential for breaking down barriers seems to be there--obviously, it would take a great deal of collaboration and cooperation and probably wouldn't work with a large class, but of small ideas great things are born, right?
 

Using the Web: Trouble Shooting
 

Andrew Grillo, Biology and Biomedical Sciences, 2000
Server problems in class can be avoided by running the pages from a computer that's not connected to a network. I think I'm not using the best terminolgy so let me try to explain more. This would be similar to a
Powerpoint presentation. A benefit of this is you won't have to worry about a slow network connection lengthing the down time in your lecture.  If you created the web site yourself, you already have the HTML files on disk or on your computer and can open them in Navigator (use the "File" drop down menu then "Open" then "Page in Navigator"). You might also have to change the links so they would look for HTML files on your computer instead of the internet. If you plan to use several links during the lecture this might become quite time consuming.
     Another option in case the server is down would be to use a "web page ripper" program to download the web pages onto your computer. The example I always think of is downloading a newspaper in the morning to your laptop and reading it on the train ride to work. This could be useful if you want to show a web site you did not create and do not have the HTML file. 

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