My experience as a TA

Now that the semester is almost over, I've completed most of my responsibilities as a teaching assistant for Psychology Research Methods. All that's left to do now is finalize grades and listen to students' presentations about their research projects! I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on my experience as a TA and what I've learned.

Something I learned from other friends who were also TAs this semester is that TAships look very different in different classes and with different professors. Some of my friends did more in-class instruction while others had lots of grading to do. I had a nice balance in my class; while I did grade assignments, we had a relatively small class. I also spent class time hopping from breakout room to breakout room to check in on groups and see if anyone needed support. I felt a bit awkward doing this, since I know it can be strange to have a professor pop into your breakout room, but I was happy to hear that this was actually helpful for students when I read my TA evaluations. 

Besides grading and helping out in class, my teaching responsibilities included leading exam review sessions before the midterm and the final, and giving a mini-lecture about my research project and how it connects to course material. The exam review sessions were a huge learning experience for me, since it's difficult to prepare to answer questions when you're not sure what those questions will be. My professor suggested including time at the beginning for people to submit their questions in the chat and for me to prep my materials, and this helped me better address students' questions. 

I also really enjoyed getting to work with individual students during office hours. Sometimes it was difficult to find solutions when challenges arose, but it was so rewarding to be able to problem solve with students and support them with their research projects. I'm really looking forward to hearing their presentations about their work! 

Overall, being a TA was definitely challenging and time-consuming, but I'm really grateful to have been able to improve my teaching skills while working with a great group of students!