Teaching Methods in Computer Science

CSE 599 is a TA development class for incoming TAs in Computer Science and Engineering classes.

Winter 2021

Remote Instruction

Instructor

Mia Minnes (minnes@eng.ucsd.edu), Office hours by appointment

TA

Apoorva Gokhale (agokhale@eng.ucsd.edu)

Nuts and bolts

CSE 599 will help you during your first CSE TA experience. In this class, you will learn how to synthesize information and help others learn it. You will meet weekly with other first-time TAs and a mentor to share your experiences and practice key skills. And you will document your learning process by observing teaching and reflecting on your growth.

Syllabus

What is the workload for CSE 599?

CSE 599 is a 2-unit course: expect to spend up to 6 hours per week on this course, including a 40 minute weekly synchronous practicum session. The additional five or so hours per week will be spent evaluating and refining your TA activities, preparing for CSE 599 practicum sessions, and consulting background research papers, information guides, and videos. Specifically:

Surveys and reflections

You must complete the CSE 599 pre-class and post-class survey. At the beginning of the quarter, you will define your TA role and responsibilities (using the ASES form). Each week, you'll fill out a short form to track how you carry out these duties and to reflect on successes and on areas for improvement.

Engaged attendance

You are expected to fully participate in all of each practicum meeting, including arriving on time (or early) and engaging in group discussions. On (rare) occasions when unavoidable circumstances require you to miss a class session, you are expected to notify your practicum teammates, the CSE 599 TA, and the instructor ahead of time, and to make up the missed work. The practicum sessions will be scheduled with consideration to time zones and other constraints.

Teaching practice

You will practice effective teaching informed by science of learning and you will reflect on your growth over the quarter. In the CSE 599 practicum and in your own TA work (e.g in discussion), you'll continue to apply and grow your skills, while also observing others. At the end of the quarter, you will reflect on your teaching methods and perspectives.

Around Week 6 of the quarter, we will have a checkpoint to confirm that you are on track for successfully completing the course requirements. Students who do not pass this checkpoint may not be offered TA appointments for the next quarter.

With the successful completion of this class, you will be able to:

1. Effectively carry out the basic roles and responsibilities of CSE TAs at UC San Diego.
   More specifically ...
   • Communicate with your instructor to align expectations about the specific roles and responsibilities of your TA position in a given quarter.
   • Effectively plan and deliver discussion sections with clear learning objectives and implementing active learning strategies.
   • Create and use rubrics to support efficient and replicable grading.
   • Maintain and safeguard protected student data.
2. Connect professionalism to teamwork and teaching and reflect on your development as a professional.
   More specifically ...
   • Reflect on your and your teammates' collaborations to assess what's working well, what can be improved, and how to improve it.
   • Identify priority areas for attention and improvement, and identify where efficiency can help decrease time spent on non-priority areas.
   • Connect skills and insights from your role as a TA to future career goals.
3. Describe several theories of how people learn and apply them to teaching and learning strategies.
   More specifically ...
   • Design specific, low-stakes activities to find out what students do and don't know.
   • Use techniques for creating inclusive communities for learning.

Schedule of Topics

	Practicum topic
Week 1	No practicum session this week: Meet via Zoom Wednesday 2pm-3:20pm
Week 2	Professionalism and FERPA
Week 3	Grading
Week 4	Office hour roleplay
Week 5	Teaching practices, part 1
Week 6	No practicum session this week
Week 7	Academic integrity
Week 8	Designing a good question
Week 9	Teaching practices, part 2
Week 10	No practicum session this week: Meet via Zoom Wednesday 2pm-3:20pm

You will explore education research in a self-paced and self-directed component of this class. Teaching resources grouped by topic are here. The topics are: Active Learning; Growth Mindset; Grading, part 1; Inclusive Classrooms; Academic Integrity; Overcoming challenges; Grading, part 2.

Grading

This class is taken S/U. We hope that every student will successfully earn a passing grade in this class. To do so, you need to meet or exceed the following minimum passing thresholds in each course component.

Surveys and forms

All required surveys and forms must be completed by Wednesday of finals week.

Attendance

Any missed practicum session is communicated to the CSE 599 instructor and TA in writing and a plan to make up the missed work is proposed and carried out. Activities and handouts for each week's practicum are available here.

Regular TA reflections

The reflections (via Gradescope) must start by week 2 and there can be no more than a three-week gap between reflections. For example, reflections on your week 1, week 4, week 7, and week 10 activities would meet the minimum passing threshold.

Assignments

You must complete the Observation Reflection assignment by Wednesday of finals week.

Scholarly teaching

You will explore recent education research papers to inform your teaching. You must complete all seven Topic Quick Responses as well as your Teaching Resource Video presentation by Wednesday of final exam week.