During spring semester of 2016, I chose to be a TA for Models II for a few reasons: 1) I love Matlab, 2) I needed some money, and 3) it counts as an honors experience. This was a leadership experience, which aligned nicely with the Exploring Leadership course I took during the same semester. I was able to take some skills I was learning in the seminar and apply them in the classroom. A lot of what I learned from being a TA is how to adapt leadership based on the followers. There are some students who really want to learn and want you to give them hints and let them reach the answer on their own. There are also students who really just don’t understand Matlab, and need to be walked through the concepts in a little more detail. Then there are the students who won’t ask for help and would rather just copy off their neighbors instead.
During this experience I got the opportunity to connect with a few small groups of students and see how each of them learned. I then tried to apply a teaching method that aligned well with that. For the students who didn’t ask for help, it was necessary to go over to them and ask them directly how things were going. Only then would they ask me questions. This experience was a good introduction into leading groups. The most important thing to recognize (in my opinion) was that every follower/student is unique and they all learn and are inspired in unique ways, so applying one type of leadership to everyone is not the most effective method.
I have attached a lab that I created as my artifact. This lab is an introduction to structures in Matlab. I chose this because through paying attention to what the students were learning, their complaints about the course, and my own experiences as a CS major, I identified structures as something the students might find beneficial. Common complaints are that Matlab isn’t real programming and that they’ll never need it for their jobs, but programming is an extremely useful skill, and structures are a central part of effective programming.
During this experience I got the opportunity to connect with a few small groups of students and see how each of them learned. I then tried to apply a teaching method that aligned well with that. For the students who didn’t ask for help, it was necessary to go over to them and ask them directly how things were going. Only then would they ask me questions. This experience was a good introduction into leading groups. The most important thing to recognize (in my opinion) was that every follower/student is unique and they all learn and are inspired in unique ways, so applying one type of leadership to everyone is not the most effective method.
I have attached a lab that I created as my artifact. This lab is an introduction to structures in Matlab. I chose this because through paying attention to what the students were learning, their complaints about the course, and my own experiences as a CS major, I identified structures as something the students might find beneficial. Common complaints are that Matlab isn’t real programming and that they’ll never need it for their jobs, but programming is an extremely useful skill, and structures are a central part of effective programming.
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