PS 201 - Introduction to Race and Ethnic Politics
Words cannot express how excited I was when I got my assignment to teach PS 201 with Dr. Cara Wong in Fall 2011. My interest in race and ethnic politics was one of the main determinants in deciding to attend UIUC for graduate school, and I was excited to be a teaching assistant in a course dedicated to the topic. After the midterm exam, it became clear to me that the students were unable to engage with the material as deeply as they needed, in order to be successful in the class. My sense was that they were eager to learn about the topics, but were unsure of how to engage with academic articles and synthesize the materials for the exams and papers. Thus, the other TA and I decided to start creating weekly Google Doc study guides for our students. Each week, each student would be assigned to a reading, and would be required to write-up a summary on a small part of the reading. They would then upload this brief summary to the Google document, which was shared with all students in the class.
This benefited the students in several different ways. First, it created a sense of community within each classroom; each week's study guide was a group effort. Second, it reduced their workload dramatically by helping them focus on one reading, while still getting exposure to the other readings. Finally, every student would have access to a comprehensive study guide for the readings, which would prove invaluable in studying for their final exam. Grades from the midterm to the final improved dramatically, and I was thrilled that our idea had worked so well.
In Fall 2012, I was assigned to be a teaching assistant for PS 201 for a second time. I was thrilled, and determined to implement the "Google Docs" system from the very beginning of the class, in order to retain as many students as possible and maximize their learning experiences. I was also interested in implementing a "group presentation" aspect. Each group would present their assigned reading, and we would engage in a discussion about that reading. After getting my IEFs back, I realized that while the students loved the Google Docs, the same could not be said for the group presentations. They were time-consuming, and it was a lot of surface-level repetition and not enough engagement with the material. After the IEFs, I got rid of group presentations, and we instead walked through the material as a group. They responded very well to this, and my final evaluations reflected their satisfaction with these changes. I got the highest evaluations I have ever gotten that semester; even more importantly, it was the most fulfilling teaching experience I had ever had.
I've included some visual representations of my evaluations over time below.
Qualitative comments on my teaching in PS 201 can be found here and here.
This benefited the students in several different ways. First, it created a sense of community within each classroom; each week's study guide was a group effort. Second, it reduced their workload dramatically by helping them focus on one reading, while still getting exposure to the other readings. Finally, every student would have access to a comprehensive study guide for the readings, which would prove invaluable in studying for their final exam. Grades from the midterm to the final improved dramatically, and I was thrilled that our idea had worked so well.
In Fall 2012, I was assigned to be a teaching assistant for PS 201 for a second time. I was thrilled, and determined to implement the "Google Docs" system from the very beginning of the class, in order to retain as many students as possible and maximize their learning experiences. I was also interested in implementing a "group presentation" aspect. Each group would present their assigned reading, and we would engage in a discussion about that reading. After getting my IEFs back, I realized that while the students loved the Google Docs, the same could not be said for the group presentations. They were time-consuming, and it was a lot of surface-level repetition and not enough engagement with the material. After the IEFs, I got rid of group presentations, and we instead walked through the material as a group. They responded very well to this, and my final evaluations reflected their satisfaction with these changes. I got the highest evaluations I have ever gotten that semester; even more importantly, it was the most fulfilling teaching experience I had ever had.
I've included some visual representations of my evaluations over time below.
Qualitative comments on my teaching in PS 201 can be found here and here.
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