Well, I survived the first section! True, the 50 minutes were mostly taken up by administrative tasks, and I really only posed a few questions to the students at key moments, moments that know I can loosely define as my first, brave attempts at teaching, but, yes we all survived.
In preparation we four GSI’s for City Planning 118: The Urban Community (recall that this is a large lecture that satisfies the AC requirement and sections are capped at 30 students and certain to be populated with a myriad of majors, years of study, ethnic background and English proficiencies) met a number of times to both discuss the ongoing enrollment issues and—more importantly for me —and share ideas for Day 1 of Section.
While Matt and I are novices, our Head GSI and the fourth GSI have a useful amount of experience between them. From Daniel I borrowed what turned out to be a very successful ice-breaker/get-to-know each other exercise (sample phrases that students had to fill out: find someone who: grew up in an urban cluster, whose ancestors lived in tenement housing, speaks another language, is an immigrant). The exercise:
· Got students on their feet
· Allowed them to get to know each other
· Allowed them to talk to me
· Introduced a few definitions from class
· Set an active, familiar and not-too-formal mood for the section.
Below I refer to Objectives for the First Day, a piece of suggested reading from the syllabus, in order to further describe just what went down in Section 301. (A student asked me if it was section 301 and I told her I hoped so = first laugh!)
1. Establish a welcoming classroom environment. (I welcomed them, pretty much all individually! We had fun!)
2. Define objectives for the section or lab and for your role as the GSI. (We did this as a class, having each of the students read a sentence, pausing for me to explain or answer questions.)
3. Discuss course and campus policies. (Done, and listed as resources on the syllabus)
4. Introduce yourself, and have students introduce themselves. (Me: yes. And a bit of most students as we talked about who _____ in the exercise. As well, anytime someone asked a question or offered something, I tried to get more information out of them.)
5. Begin to learn students’ names. (Mary! Mara! Carlos! June. Doug: who asks a LOT of questions. Hongda! Yes, some of the names even stuck!)
6. Gather student information. (On their way out I had them fill out information about the basics and why they’re in the class — very intertesting!)
7. Establish and discuss guidelines for discussion. (We need to do more on this, but I told them we would.)
8. Discuss course and section grades, readings, and assignments. (Yup!)
9. Get the students talking to each other. (Ice breaker started us off.)
10. Have students engage with class material. (A tiny bit, but yes.)
11. Deal with enrollment issues. (Ah, yes.)
The best things I did for myself to prepare for Day 1 of Section include:
· Attending the Head GSI’s section
· The use of the ice breaker
· Mimicking many of the Head GSI’s tricks: having students read one sentence of the syllabus at a time; using the ice breaker to discuss course themes, demonstrate I have some knowledge, etc.
· Making myself available for office hours immediately afterward: met with four students
· Mostly: beg, borrow and steal from other GSIs, websites, how-to guides and the like.
· Not getting up at 2 am to fine tune my “lesson plan” even though I couldn’t sleep for 2 hours out of anxiety.
(Sorry, I can't seem to get the font under my control above or here) In sum: preparation was key for me. It helped me manage the time, the content of the section and my anxiety. I had attended the Making Group Work Effective workshop and am excited to put many of those tips to work.
And in closing: I'm still a bit terrified of the actual "teaching" — I found myself relieved that we only had time to get into a few basic definitions (culled together from student input) and that I did not have a chance to get into course material. This is NOT a feeling/intent/regret I want to have ever again. Guess it's time for more prep work! And sharing/stealing/begging from my team of fellow GSIs.
I think that the beauty of your reflection is that you have begun "teaching" - you did get into the course material. What you made time for in that first day was a critical part of making any of the content you intend to share relevant or accessible for the students. The fact that you created an open, effective learning environment is just as important as any of the key concepts that you could have covered. And the content is available a number of other places - the text book, the lectures, on line. Creating a positive learning environment isn't available anywhere so it sounds like your first day was a huge success. While teaching to avoid the content would never be a good strategy - I think that it is fair for you to acknowledge the success you did have.
ReplyDeleteI love the specifics that you shared about what worked. It is a good reminder to me to always think about the things that went well. I think that borrowing from those who have gone before is a great strategy too - you motivate me to contact the person who was the GSI for my class before me. No sense in reinventing the wheel.
Here's to success!