Graduate Teaching Assistant Reflective Report

I am a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) who assists the professor in lab sessions for a computer based software course. Each lab session lasts for about an hour and a half. My role is to facilitate learning by solving doubts that arise while solving in class exercises. Study stays assisting a course must be done in 3 simple steps, planning, implementing and evaluating the task. The professor for my course prepares the material for each session and gets a print out for the class and the teaching assistants. These files are uploaded on Blackboard a day before the class for students to download and 2-3 days before class for TA’s to prepare. This is the time to plan and do your homework, for implementing it in class with ease and finally evaluating of how things went and what could be done to do better, or to ponder over what you learnt in that session. I try to include active learning by giving hints first and letting student figure out the next step. I feel, this strategy not only helps them develop critical thinking and problem solving skills, but also prepares them for exams and post-course use. I encourage them to try to solve the problem, or if they cannot, to understand what could be going wrong by asking questions to themselves. However I wait until a point where they are engaged in thinking process but have not lost interest …show more content…
Also, since it demands personal attention, student’s often feel comfortable asking doubts as oppose to raising hand and asking a professor during a class. This means there is an opportunity to connect with your students and develop that mutual respect and trust and be sure to limit the conversations to professional level. Also, I feel saying motivating words like “You are doing great job”, “You did it”, etc. adds to the motivation and connection with the subject, which I learnt it from my