TAO Success!

We just want to extend a big thank you to all the TAs that came to the TA Orientation this year.  We had a lot of fun meeting with you and discussing teaching related topics at UC Davis.  Good luck with your teaching, and remember to schedule a teaching consultation in the future!

TA Orientation!

The new school year is finally here!  Classes start on the 26th, and the TACs will be hosting the TA Orientation on Monday and Tuesday (23rd and 24th).  If you're TAing sometime this year, be sure to sign up and attend the orientation!

TAC Member: Mai Thai

I’m very excited to join a supportive teaching community through the TAC program.  I am passionate about this work because I believe the educational site has the potential to be a transformative space for anyone involved.  My teaching style has been influenced by Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Ira Shor, and my past educators who have committed to critical and feminist teaching philosophies—I want to challenge the common practice of “banking” knowledge, where students are seen as empty vessels for teachers to deposit information; rather, I believe students and instructors can be mutual teachers and learners and that students learn better when they have creative agency.  

Aside from teaching, I am also passionate about working on issues affecting low-income immigrant communities.  Before coming to UC Davis, I worked with high school students in various programs and organizations to empower youth towards higher education and to engage in social and political advocacy.  Working with youth has encouraged my sociological research on gender inequalities in K-12 education, particularly in Asian American communities.

TAC Member: Leilani Serafin

Hello!  I'm a second-year TA Consultant, and am very excited to continue my teaching education.  I'm a fourth-year Ph.D student in the English department, and have started work on my dissertation, which will focus on theatrical adaptations of sensation novels.  For the rest of this year, I will be teaching English 3: Introduction to Literature, which gives me a lot of opportunity to be creative with my teaching.  Before coming to UC Davis, I taught various levels of introductory writing at Cal State Los Angeles, where I also worked in a Writing Center.  While I was there, I loved interacting with students from a wide variety of academic disciplines, and I have fun to continuing that exchange now, as a TA Consultant!

As a teacher, I'm currently interested in student motivation, and in designing assignments that will help students blend creativity with critical thinking skills while also inspiring them to think more deeply about their own interests.  My students have taught me a lot interesting things so far, so I'm looking forward to another fun and educational year!

TAC Member: Tracy Quan

¡Hola! My name is Tracy and I am one of the new incoming TA Consultants. I am really excited to have the opportunity to not only help and support my fellow graduate students through the TA orientation, consultations, and workshops, but also to learn from all of you as we all embark on our journeys as instructors.

I am a third year PhD student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, specializing in Hispanic Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. At UC Davis, I’ve been a T.A. of Spanish 1,2, 2V (a hybrid course), 3 (UC Davis Extension) and 21. Before that, I have taught English and Spanish to children and adults in San Francisco, Marin, and Madrid, Spain. As an instructor, I believe in the importance of promoting student autonomy, in making learning engaging, and developing a teacher-student relationship based on respect and understanding. Since all of my experience has been confined to the foreign language classroom, I look forward to expanding my horizons in other departments and exploring teaching approaches from other disciplines.

Aside from teaching and anxiously preparing for my upcoming qualifying exams, I enjoy doing yoga, running, being outdoors, and traveling.

TAC Member: Kelly Neil

I’m excited to continue my work as a TA Consultant this year and look forward to meeting more TAs from across campus! I am a PhD candidate in the English Department working on a dissertation that focuses on suicide, politics, and gender in sixteenth and seventeenth century drama. I have taught various composition courses for the University Writing Program, as well as introduction to literature courses and a survey course of Medieval and Early Modern literature for the English department. I have TA’d for courses such as Chaucer: Minor Poems, Shakespeare: The Early Plays, Renaissance Prose, and, for the Religious Studies department, Non-Western Religions. Before coming to UCD, I taught composition at a community college in North Carolina.

One of my goals as a TA Consultant is to help instructors provoke their students to engage more deeply in the course material. This includes getting students to speak more often, do more things in the classroom, and to demonstrate real interest in the course material. In fact, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “student” comes from the Latin studium, meaning zeal or affection. Thus, the very concept of being a student is premised on passionate states of being – to be a student is, according to the word’s etymology, to be in a state of excitement about a topic of study. When instructors strive to create exciting classrooms, students learn more effectively, a connection that seems to have emerged in ancient Roman “classes” just as it emerges today.

When I'm not reading early modern plays or teaching, I'm usually spending time with my dog, Lucy, who is a Huskie/Greyhound/Border Collie mix, cooking, attempting to grow flowers in my yard, and tasting new wines.

TAC Member: Miki Mori

Hello everyone. My name is Miki and I am a returning TA Consultant. I am looking forward to working with all of you fellow graduate students and postdoctoral scholars on your endeavors and adventures in the classroom. I hope to not only enhance your teaching experience through consultations, workshops, and the TA orientation but also learn from you as an instructor and graduate student.

I am a PhD candidate in Linguistics with a Designated Emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition. My dissertation research focuses on academic writing development as it relates to the incorporation of outside sources, multilingualism, identity, and academic achievement. At UCD I mainly teach undergraduate and graduate ESL writing but I also TA for an introductory Linguistics course and taught English grammar. Through being an ESL instructor over the years, I have developed a passion for teaching while also enjoying collaborating with colleagues on lesson ideas, approaches to learning, and everyday issues of being an educator.

While being a graduate student consumes most of my life, when I do have free time I like to spend it outdoors, in the mountains or on the sea…and really anywhere in between.

TACC Member: Philip Matern

I can't believe it's a new year already!   I am really excited for the opportunity to be a TAC coordinator with Heather Dwyer.   I learned so much last year as a TAC, and can’t wait to continue working with new graduate students as we try to improve our approach to teaching.

This past year I tried to incorporate new technologies into the classroom and really focused on understanding how various technologies can be used to improve delivery of information and student learning.  I hope to continue using technology to incorporate active learning and student engagement both in and out of class.  I am excited to learn with our new TAC cohort and to continue working with the graduate teaching community at UC Davis.

Apart from teaching and the TAC program, I research the regulation of skeletal and cardiac muscle mass.  When I'm not at school, I love playing with my daughter and enjoying family time.  I also enjoy growing a beard and being barefoot. I’m a big fan of barefoot shoes and you should be too. Free your feet!

TAC Member: Robert Lynch

Aloha and Welcome! My name is Robert Lynch and I am pleased and excited to be returning to the TAC for my second year as a fellow. Last year I enjoyed learning from both clients and fellow TAC’s and I look forward to even more this year.

I am a graduate student in the Physics Education Research Group here at UC Davis and greatly enjoy teaching. I’ve taught physics to many different students, from middle school science camp to upper division physics majors, to bio-scientists, pre-med’s and engineers. Out of these experiences I’ve formed my ideas about teaching and learning. I am thoroughly convinced of two things. First, baring grossly extenuating circumstances, no discipline, be it physics or art or anything in between, is truly beyond the grasp of anyone. And second, students learn best when they do the learning.

TAC Member: Henry Hao

Hello, everyone. My name is Henry Hao and I will be working as one of the new TA consultants this year. I am looking forward to not only supporting my fellow colleagues from different areas via consultations and workshops, but also improving my teaching skills in TAC program.

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics and doing research on Chinese processing export during the recent financial crisis. I have been a T.A. of various econ. classes such as intermediate microeconomics/macroeconomics, international economics, data analysis, and I currently teach economy of East Asia. My teaching philosophy lies in my interests in applying theoretical idea to real world scenarios. Instead of introducing abstract theoretical models as stand-alone modules, I prefer explaining the theory and applying it to real-world examples.

Aside from my research and teaching, I love cooking (I just finished my 100 dishes project), workout/running (I'm training for my first SF marathon in June), photography, and traveling.

TAC Member: Patrick Grof-Tisza

Academics are generally held to two expectations: generating and disseminating knowledge. As graduate students and post-doctoral scholars, we receive much training regarding the former but very little in the way of effective knowledge dissemination aside from composing scholarly articles. I look forward to working with the graduate teaching community to become more effective educators.

I am a 5th year graduate student in the Graduate Group of Ecology. My research concerns how trophic interactions vary across ecological gradients and how these interactions can structure populations across the landscape. I employ observational and experimental approaches using a day-flying tiger moth within the Bodega Marine Reserve as a model system.

When not on the northern California coast conducting field work, I am usually sinking my hands in splitter, granite cracks within the Sierra Nevada.

TACC Member: Heather Dwyer

Hi everyone, I can’t wait to start another year as a TA consultant. This cycle I will be sharing the role of TAC coordinator with Philip Matern. The TAC program has been an exciting and rewarding experience, and I’m looking forward to working with UC Davis graduate student instructors again this year.

I began TAing in my first year as a graduate student, and though I didn’t come to Davis with the intention of pursuing teaching, my love for it has really grown. I try to pursue innovative active learning techniques in the classroom and I enjoy interacting with undergraduates. My main goals as an instructor are to have a lasting impact on students and to help them foster a genuine interest in course subject matter. Working with other TAs and TACs has opened my eyes to a variety of teaching approaches. Post-graduation I hope to continue a career in teaching and teaching consulting.

Outside of teaching and the TAC program, I research alfalfa butterfly hybridization. I also enjoy reading, knitting, and exploring the Bay Area.

A new year for the TAC program!

Another spring quarter means the start of a new year for the TAC program.  The newest Teaching Assistant Consultants join four returning members as we prep for a year filled with consultations, workshops, and the TA Orientation.  We are proud to announce the newest cohort of TAC's.

   TAC Coordinators (TACC):

• Heather Dwyer  (Ecology)
• Philip Matern  (Physiology)

   Returning TACs:

• Robert Lynch  (Physics)
• Miki Mori  (Linguistics)
• Kelly Neil  (English)
• Leilani Serafin  (English)

   New TACs:

• Patrick Grof-Tisza  (Ecology)
• Henry Hao  (Economics)
• Tracy Quan  (Spanish)
• Mai Thai  (Sociology)

Congratulations to the newest members joining our group.  

We look forward to serving the UC Davis campus community from Spring Quarter 2013 through Winter Quarter 2014. 

Winter Workshop 3: Motivating Students

In this week’s workshop we explored student motivation. Our main goals for the workshop included discovering what motivates students, learning how different factors affect and are affected by motivation, and exploring techniques to increase motivation. We began with a discussion of why motivation is important for student learning and then brainstormed what motivates students. To better understand what factors impact student motivation, we explored a model compiled by Ambrose et al. (“How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching”). In this model, the goal values, student expectation for success, and learning environment all affect motivation levels, which in turn impact a student’s behavior and ultimate achievement of a learning goal (see diagram). In the culminating section of the workshop, participants generated lists of techniques for establishing values, encouraging expectancies (expectations for success) and building positive classroom environments. In these lists, several participants said that connecting activities and assignments to "real world" concerns and issues could be motivating for students. Others said that by giving students positive feedback, and setting clear expectations for their work, they could help foster a positive attitude toward the class. 

Student motivation model, modified from Ambrose et al. (2010)

While formulating this workshop, we first tried to generate our own list about what might motivate students, which included grades, job prospects, interest in the subject matter, etc. However, as we got deeper into the research surrounding student motivation, we started noticing that there are so many (sometimes conflicting) factors that influence student motivation, some of which instructors can control, and some of which they can’t. We hoped we emphasized the specific things that instructors could control, like cultivating a collaborative classroom environment and setting clear expectations, but in future iterations of this workshop, we might try to get even more specific about what strategies instructors can use to motivate students in the classroom. For now, though, we think this group of workshop participants came up with a thorough, helpful list!

Making the Most of Memory and Rethinking Retention: a workshop on Desirable Difficulties

Synopsis
This workshop presented material based on research by cognitive psychologists Robert Bjork, Kelli Taylor, Harold Pashler and others. The fundamental idea behind all of the desirable difficulties is that slowing down learning, forcing students to pay attention and work harder to learn consistently has two results. First, it improves students learning in the long run, not necessarily immediately. And second, it routinely causes those facing the desirable difficulties to feel like they are less successful. The types of desirable difficulties discussed were threefold: changing the environment, multimodal learning, and interleaving.

Reflection
We and the participants learned a great deal through the workshop. Parts of the content were well received and other parts were more challenging, especially when it came time to convey the information in a manner that was directly relevant and accessible to the participants. The best received aspect was the notion of the “myth” of learning styles. Participants knew about learning styles--e.g. learning auditorily, visually, linguistically, mathematically/logically, and kinesthetically--as a way to reach students. In our workshop we discussed how cornering ourselves into one teaching or learning style is actually detrimental to students, and it is often the case that a blended approach to learning styles is more effective.

We had a lively discussion of how these desirable difficulties can be applied on an individual and discipline-specific basis. Participants asked how the process of “interleaving” could be applied to different disciplines. What is interleaving? True to this concept, we held off on giving away a solid definition (although we gave hints) until the end. This process, characterized by giving students information in small chunks rather than all at once, has been shown to be highly effective, but seemed limited by the kinds of disciplines it has been applied to in research.

We encourage participants to use research databases at their disposal to look up research done on interleaving and education in their fields. Furthermore, as TAs and AIs, now is the perfect time to “experiment” with your students, to give lessons in innovative ways, and to reach beyond our comfort zones as future professors. It is a common argument that one discipline is more suited for one kind of teaching approach, and it is rare--if not outright inexistent--that this is actually true for most pedagogical approaches.

Winter Workshop 1: Active Learning

This year’s winter workshop series focuses on ways to teach effectively, and we started off with a fun and productive workshop about the benefits of active learning.  After a brief overview of the series, we began by defining active learning in small groups and compiling each group’s definition into one presentation for all to see.  After this great opening discussion, we compared active learning to traditional passive lectures as participants generated a list of the pros and cons of each.  Following this discussion, we presented a few compelling studies demonstrating how active learning methods improve learning outcomes. Using the information participants had learned so far, they then took time to create active learning activities to use in their own classrooms and then critiqued them in small groups.  We finished up by discussing both the participants’ activities as well as a list of additional activities provided to participants.

The first workshop seemed to go over really well and we had lots of positive feedback.  We were pleased with a big turnout of over fifty participants, and even with a large group the discussions made it possible for many individuals to contribute their ideas.  Given the nature of our workshop on research supported techniques, one of our goals was to discuss literature surrounding the use of active learning.  We found many studies pointing toward its benefits, but did not find any showing that it doesn’t work.  One of our participants brought this up during our discussions, but no one was aware of any contradicting studies.  Also, we knew going into the workshop that fitting active learning into a single, specific definition would be difficult. However, by relying on a few pre-selected definitions from educational professionals, we showed participants how their own definitions shared common themes with the definitions created by professionals. Ultimately, even though some participants preferred to see one definitive definition for active learning and even though common themes in the definitions were important, we believe that active learning is a complex, multi-faceted concept that can be defined in various ways. Using the powerpoint and polling technology was very helpful in this defining process because we were able to quickly compare participants’ definitions side by side for all to see.  The participants seemed to enjoy the use of technology in our workshop and we hope they are looking forward to the future workshop on teaching technologies.  Altogether, we had a great time preparing and giving this workshop on active learning.