TA Duties
Home
Philosophy
IDMS Prog
Calculus I
Calculus II
  1. Attend Class so you know how I’m explaining things and hear announcements.
     
  2. Reply to email questions, especially from WebWork.
     
  3. Conduct Discussion Sessions.   Typically you will
    1. Answer homework questions.
      •  This is very good practice for teaching your own class.
      •   Be sure to take the WebWork answers with you and look over the WebWork and paper homework questions before class.
      •    If they say “I can’t do #7,” then just walk them through it, asking them if they understand every few steps.
      •   If they say “Why do we multiply by ½ in #3,” then just telling them why and asking if that makes sense is probably enough.  If they still seem confused, explain more and ask them where they are lost.
      •    If they say “WebWork won’t take my answer,” ask them exactly what they typed.  Most of the time, they have the wrong answer and then you can explain how to do the problem.  Sometimes its something simple, like typing  sin^2(x) instead of (sin (x) )^2.
         
    2. Answer any other general questions about the material.
       
    3. Run LearnStar competitions.
      •    I will give you the filenames ahead of time and (I hope) a printout of the questions.
      •    If a lot of people missed a question, pause the competition (the P key) and explain it.
      •    About every two weeks, plug in the cart between the 8:00 and 12:30 classes to let it charge.
         
    4. Help them with groupwork.
      •     Pass out the sheets and wander around the room helping anyone with questions.
      •    Occasionally ask “Does anyone have questions?” or “Is everyone understanding everything?” etc.
         
    5. Return paper homework and exams.
       
  4. Grade paper homework.
    1. Just check to see that they attempted to answer every question.  They should show “appropriate work,” meaning that if it’s a multi-step problem, they should have several things written down before the answer.  But for simple problems like “Find the derivative of x2 cos(x),” they can just write down the answer.
       
    2. Give them one point for each problem attempted.
       
    3. Record the grades in WebCT (www.webct.ttu.edu)