CSE 599

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.

Class materials available here	Presentations Topic	Practicum Topic
Week 1, March 30	Intro session: Getting started (with CSE 599, and with TAing)
Week 2, April 6	Presentations: Active learning	Practicum: Professionalism
Week 3, April 13	Presentations: Grading	Practicum: Grading
Week 4, April 20	Presentations: Growth mindset and inclusive classrooms	Practicum: Teaching Practices, part 1
Week 5, April 27	Presentations: Academic integrity	Practicum: Academic integrity
Week 6, May 4	Presentations: Grading, part 2	Practicum: Office hours roleplay
Week 7, May 11	Presentations: Imposter phenomenon and stereotype threat	Practicum: Teaching Practices, part 2
Week 8, May 18	Presentations: Cognitive load theory	Practicum: Designing a good question
Week 9, May 25	Presentations: Learning from feedback and instructional team interactions	Practicum: Mentor TA advising
Week 10, June 1	Recap session: what we learned together

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 the 80 minute weekly session. The additional three-and-a-half 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. 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 every class session, including arriving on time (or early), engaging in group activities, and participating in large- and small-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 propose and carry out a plan to make up the missed work.
Teaching practice: You will practice effective teaching and reflect on your growth over the quarter. At least once during the quarter, you will introduce the weekly CSE 599 theme based on provided background resources. 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:

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.
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.
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.

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 class session (large group and/or practicum) 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 discussion and 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.
Group presentations: You sign up for and present the CSE 599 weekly theme once during the quarter.

Teaching Methods in Computer Science

Nuts and bolts

Syllabus

Acknowledgements