Ask a TA: Determining and Evaluating Teaching Levels

This month’s ‘Ask a TA’ is in response to a recently received question:

I feel like I’m having to explain things over and over again to my students. I don’t know what to do! Do I have to explain everything ten times? It's especially frustrating when I see them not making an effort to pay attention during class. They are giving me a headache!

This is not an uncommon issue to have in a class, and there are several ways to approach the phenomenon.

Evaluating Teaching Levels

It may be helpful to begin by evaluating your own teaching levels to ensure that you aren’t teaching too far above or below your students’ level. It is probably the case, however, that you have students with varying levels of competence in the subject matter. Aim to challenge the majority of your students, but not in a way that makes the material too difficult for others. There is a difference between challenging your students and having unreasonable expectations. Expecting your 100-level class to read a book that requires background information is unreasonable. Expecting the same from a 300-level class is not. Expecting your students to spend ten hours a day on your class is unreasonable. Expecting your students to read one hour a day is not.

So how do you evaluate your teaching level? The Teaching Assistant Project offers videotaping and consultation services. We will come to your classroom, videotape you, and then meet with you to discuss your teaching style and class. You can also take the video and review it with someone whom you respect as a teacher, either in your department or elsewhere.

Assessing Student Experience

Students’ experience with the class material will vary from semester to semester. You could have a majority of students in your class who have a basic knowledge of the subject, or an intense interest one semester and the next semester a group who seems disinterested or maybe have less of an understanding. So, early in the semester, start off by assessing your students. This can be as simple as asking for their experience the first day. You could also incorporate a writing or lab assignment or a pretest to determine the actual level of student knowledge rather than assuming it.

This will help you deal with students who may need to drop the class (in the extreme), or who need to come to office hours a few times to catch up.

Behavior or Engagement

Once you’ve determined that you are teaching to the appropriate level, consider behavior and student engagement. If students are not engaged with the class, rather than simply becoming frustrated and giving up, don’t be afraid to discipline them. Make sure your students understand the expectations you have for them. If you believe that reading a newspaper, checking Facebook on a laptop, or sleeping is rude and inappropriate classroom behavior, then tell them so. Add your expectations to your syllabus. If you are a TA for a professor, create a recitation section syllabus with your policies and don’t be afraid to enforce them.

You may, however, also want to try to engage the students differently. Incorporate more active learning activities, group work, or just something different. What works (or worked) for you as a student may not work for your students.

If you have suggestions about determining and evaluating teaching levels, please contact us.

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