398T Proposals

The overwhelming consensus amongst students who have taken 398T is that 5 - 10 min student talks during class are not a very effective use of class time. Our proposals for 398T are based on shifting the format from activities involving the entire class that take place during the 398T class period to small group activities that take place outside of class.

In class student presentations
Rather than presenting one at a time to the entire class students form groups of 4 and give presentations to their group with all groups going simultaneously. In this format in class student presentations will be completed in a single day.

Video taping presentations
If given access to video cameras students could record their presentations (either in their class or in an empty classroom) to be reviewed later. The videos could be reviewed by the student presenter, the other members of the student’s group and the 398T instructor.

Field work
Within their groups students could observe each other’s classes and give feedback about their actual student-TA interactions in the classroom. We could even make an observation form to help guide and focus the observing TAs. This would also be a good opportunity for lab TAs to see what a recitation TA does and vice versa.

Lab supervisors
We could put together some quizzes about information TAs should be learning from their lab supervisors. The quizzes could cover things like safety procedures, curving grades, what to do if equipment breaks, how to update the lab manual etc.

Senior TA involvement
You could get more involvement from senior TAs and AIs for more panel discussions, class observations or teaching various topics during 398T classes.

We envision 398T as a kind of mix between lectures (398T class meetings) and labs (field work). Most weeks you could have a 1 - 1.5 hour 398T class in which students discuss their ~2 hours of field work that week. Some weeks the field work could be class observations etc. Some weeks the field work could be homework assignments.