• Have some students verbally share their answer
• Make list of “Good Teacher Traits” on board
• Any common threads? What specific things should we all do to be more like these people? Would anyone have a negative reaction to any of the “good” teaching experiences mentioned?

• recap the different section structures we discussed last time
  • prompt students to name and describe them.

• yesterday we said that we try to achieve peer learning in our sections: students teach students
• studies show that this is a genuinely better way to bring about student learning
  • learning happens when students are active, trying to use ideas instead of merely listening to them
  • probably, no one in this room was taught science this way, which means it'll probably take a while to get used to orienting your teaching along these lines.
  • The Prather & Brissenden mantra isn't bad: “It's not what you do, it's what your students do.”
• we try to achieve peer learning by having students do worksheets in groups
  • this is definitely not the only way to make it happen!
  • there's been a lot of work done on how to incorporate interactive and peer-learning components into lectures, but this is less relevant to us, since you are not paid to lecture.
• we try to practice what we preach here in 300 but lord knows we're not there yet.

• Your sections will probably follow a template such as:
  • Deal with any administrative details (e.g., HW is due Friday, etc…)
  • Very quick recap of lecture: what was important?
  • If there are any questions right off the bat, answer them
  • The bulk of your section: a peer-learning activity exploring the week's topic
    • Show an activity from the Slater worksheet book as an example of a good worksheet, maybe print one off the EBRB..?
  • Any end-of-section announcements
• When you attend course lecture, note down what you'd call the major points; then a quick lecture recap becomes pretty straightforward
• Then the only hard part is planning a peer-learning activity. General tips:
  • consult the EBRB for worksheet ideas
  • Students generally love demos. check resources and EBRB demos page for relevant ones. or cook up your own!
  • plan how you're going to go over the worksheet; if you don't go over them every time you hand one out, students will stop actually filling them out
• As discussed below, your first section is going to be a bit unusual, but the precedents you set are important, so keep these general instructions in mind nonetheless.

• Pass out and go over Your First Section handout (also online).
  • Flashy start
  • Intros/icebreaker
  • Logistics/syllabus
  • Normal section! So, activity of some kind (see below)..

• Mention some or all of these:
  • Horoscope debunking
  • History of universe timeline
  • Sizes of solar system bodies (peppercorn Earth model)
  • Distances between solar system bodies (paper tape model)
  • “calendar” of universe's history
  • Scales in astronomy (e.g., ctr of gal in Albeq. from my sections)

• Maybe actually do one as a class, but probably not based on time concerns
• Also mention the EBRB and how it has sample syllabi, first day demos/activities/lesson plans, and math reviews.
• You may choose to structure your section a certain way every time, or to do a certain activity every time. For instance:
  • Onsi Fakhouri passes out blank notecards at the beginning of every section and collects them at the end, with students writing comments of any kind on them if they want. (We haven't tried this ourselves but Onsi recommends it highly.)
  • GSIs last year tried doing a quick (1-2 minute) math problem about astronomy or briefly (again 1-2 minutes) discussed a recent astro-related news item.
• If you decide to do something along these lines, do it in the first section and explain to your students what you're doing.
  • Unlike me yesterday… make sure you address this activity explicitly the first few times. “There's a recent news article on your tables which I would like you to read over the next two minutes or so, and then we will discuss.”
  • Make sure you come prepared with discussion ideas, especially for news items, as they can sometimes fail to evoke the reaction you may have been looking for/expecting.
• Try to treat it as matter-of-factly as possible, even if you just made up some crazy scheme that you've never seen tried before.
  • Whatever you do or try in section, if you're confident about it, then your students will tend to take it seriously and participate (no matter how goofy or out-there it might be).

• first sections are special, but you should try to incorporate elements of your preferred structure: precedent!
• get ay 300 students in pairs or trios to sketch out their first sections (usually we'll do this at end of class, but today is a bit different).
  • don't spend time worrying about how to go over the syllabus or whatever
  • what attention-catcher to use at the very beginning, if any?
  • what ice-breaker to use to introduce students to one another?
  • what precedents to try to set?
• have students share any interesting ice-breakers they heard, things that worry them, etc.
  • maybe act out some of the icebreakers, see how they go?
    • Just implement first minute or two of an icebreaker if people have ones they wanna try
    • Emphasize that GSI should participate in the icebreaker for good casual tone

• Mention that we'll pass out a TALC handout and a copy of the Tao of TALC in a bit and much of what we're about to say is covered in these handouts.

• TALC was designed to be a great place for all of this “peer learning” stuff to happen.
• Founded by JohnJohn; has been rolling for many years
• Now incorporated into the syllabi of almost all intro classes (majors and nonmajors)

1. GSIs DON'T give out answers.
   • This is rule #1 for a reason.
   • Students will try and bend it. (“I know you can't give me the answer, but can you tell me if this makes any sense?”) Use the same strategy right back at them.
2. GSIs won't look at your paper.
   • Crystal-clear: there should never be any exceptions to this, ever.
   • Feel free to ask the student to come to the board and work out their steps. But have them leave the homework at home. If they get the same answer… they'll probably realize they didn't even need you!
3. Board work gets PRIORITY help.
   • Always encourage use of the board.
4. NO COPYING: Homework must be written up independently.
   • Scan the room and constantly erase any completed problems.
   • Get those pens and paper away from the boards!
5. TALC Tax: Getting help from a GSI means that you be asked to give help to other students.
6. GSI busy? Ask students.
   • Remember who did what problem, and point students to each other if someone is curious about an old problem.

• Read The Tao of TALC
• Entry - Evans is locked after hours! Make sure your ID card is coded and have a system going to be sure students know how to let each other in. Make sure that the second floor is not locked (it keeps changing). If it is, let us (and your Head GSI) know.
• TALC operates best above a critical mass of students, so definitely encourage your students to come!
• It can (and often does) happen that you're just not needed some of the time. Try to find ways to pass the time, but make sure that students will feel comfortable disturbing you to ask for help. (I.e, don't get engrossed in a crossword puzzle or whatever and tune out the students. Your job is to be as helpful to the students as possible, and boredom is not an excuse for not doing your job.) But if the students are all working well without your assistance, don't go around distracting them.
• With that said, it can be a good idea to kinda quietly wander around the room from group to group every once in awhile and try to eavesdrop. If you hear something really good, praise the student, if you hear something totally wrong, try to ask a question that will make the student confront the information that's incorrect.
• You should pretty much never be working on stuff that's not related to the course you're teaching in TALC.

• Talk to a student individually if it can ever be avoided
• Sit down with a student or group
• Write on the board (except very minimally, i.e. start a sketch, then ask a student to finish)
• Leave stuff on the board
• Look at a students' paper or distribute/check answers.
• Anything that's more appropriate for office hours.

• Point to the rules!
• In the past, some non-300 GSIs have been unaware of the TALC rules and have not followed them. Please approach them about this immediately as it sets a devastating precedent. If this behavior persists, you must report them to your Head GSI or else all of TALC completely falls apart.

• Make it clear to students the line between collaborative learning and cheating. 'Too much' help will be considered cheating and dealt with as such!
• Strategies to stop it
  • Be very clear early. Students will help uphold the law for you if they know you're serious about it.
  • Force students to write on the board. Make them earn their help.
  • NO pens/paper while working at the board … just watch and learn.
  • Erase immediately. If they protest, offer a marker and have the student step through with your help. Keep an eraser with you at all times and be at the ready to erase a group's work after they've finished a problem and explained it to you and you're convinced that just about everyone in the group understands what's going on.
  • Force small groups, but watch for pair-to-pair copying.

• Student approaches you with his/her assignment asking you to check the answer.
• While working out the problem, student at table is clearly copying.
• Once the problem has been solved as a group at the board, what now?
• A few minutes later, another student/group is seen working on the board at the same problem.

• Pass out a TALC handout and a copy of the Tao of TALC.

Remind everyone that they're required to contribute their “best original worksheet” (or a significantly improved one) to the EBRB.

• Explore the topics discussed in lecture, focusing on the most important points. The aim is to make the students use an idea after merely having it told to them.
• allow students to examine their understanding by doing sample questions - but without the stress of being graded and with the assistance of groupmates
• serve as a reference after the student leaves the classroom
• Beyond the above, they can also:
  • explore new topics not covered in lecture in detail that are interesting, cutting edge or fun!
  • serve as a fill-in-the-blank 'note sheet' for a more lecture-style section
  • simply provide an incentive to experiment with a particularly involved demo activity

Worksheets are intended to get students collaborating in groups, which has been proven a great way to get them to learn the material in depth. How do we get students collaborating the way we want?

• Students need to believe that their work is going to be evaluated in some way – not necessarily in a grade, but that somehow the effort they put into the sheet (or fail to put into it) will be considered.
• You need to use good worksheets! Easier said than done, of course.
• Mixing up the makeup (and possibly the size) of the groups in your section can help change things up and get students to concentrate on the worksheets and not get as off-topic by talking to their usual groupmates (i.e. friends).
• You should stress early on in the semester (basically from the first time you do any kind of worksheet) that the information in the worksheets is often a restatement of material from lecture and some of it might be on a test (the magic phrase).
• In fact, if the information is important enough to warrant lecture-time and a worksheet in section, it must be important.
• Also stress the fact that section and worksheets and demos are supposed to the more fun, hands-on aspect of the class (as compared to lecture).

• Interesting/important topic (everyday experiences are always good, as are topics that students are always interested in: Mars, aliens, comets/meteors, Big Bang, black holes, etc.)
• A variety of types of questions
  • Answer format: multiple choice, fill in the blank, calculation, read a graph, free/paragraph response, plot data, draw a schematic, “discuss with your groupmates”, etc.
  • Presentation/group format: individuals, group, as a class, demo-related, etc.
  • Applies both within a worksheet and week-to-week
• Active participation (get students up and moving and talking, writing on the boards, presenting to the class, etc.)
• Promoting the idea of group activity (e.g., difficult or tedious for a single student to do, but can be naturally broken into independent components for different individuals)
• Separate activities/examples for separate groups to compare/contrast at the end of section (e.g. build up an H-R diagram)
• Be visually engaging: make your worksheets look nice (include pictures, picture captions, fill-in-the-blanks, etc. but don't make them too cluttered)
  • On just about every one of Dan Perley's worksheets he includes a nerdy, science-related comic.
• Relate concepts to commonsense notions and everyday experiences (if possible)
• Use of real or realistic data and images, instead of clearly fake examples, as long as it doesn't excessively complicate the activity
• Symbols are defined and used consistently with elsewhere in the course
• Be relevant to homework/exam questions (so students feel it was worthwhile to them)
• Be creative. Non-standard worksheets can work well. Try things that aren't discussed here - and let us know if they work!

• Too much calculation (many students will not bring calculators to section, even if you remind them constantly, and some will not be able to do exponents or scientific notation!)
• Too many mundane tasks (students will quickly lose interest if the questions are just “do this calculation, then this one, then this one” without ever seeing the big picture until the end or not at all)
• Covering esoteric or “boring” topics or topics that are too advanced to do much with at the Ay 10 level
• Too long: students can't finish the critical parts by the end of section and it's difficult to interrupt them to review in the last 10 minutes. If students learn that their worksheets won't be gone over every single time, they'll lose the motivation to actually do them
• Too short: some groups finish the activity and become bored (as a precaution, consider adding extra 'bonus questions' at the end you may or may not cover)
  • Answers to bonus questions can be posted on your website or given out via email or at office hours or TALC if you'd like.
• Sloppy wording (however, the standards are much less strict than for exams, quizzes, or homeworks)
• Rehashed, basic, dull questions more appropriate for homeworks or exams: take advantage of the group format – you can push your students' abilities since there are many of them working together on the worksheet!
• Not relevant: doesn't build understanding of the most important subjects – which, let's not kid ourselves, are “the things that will be on the final.” (If you think that the questions on the final are not addressing the most important subjects in the course, the thing to do is fix the final.)

• Divide into groups, hand out a sample worksheet to each group. Groups go over worksheets, present to rest of class:
  • Summarize content of worksheet
  • What they think its good and bad points are. Remember the metrics: will this get students talking to one another? Do you think it's the right difficulty? Will there be a good way to review the answers?
  • Hand out copies of the worksheet in question to the other groups while it's being discussed.

• Make sure you're intimately familiar with the worksheet before section. Work everything out yourself (and make a key).
• Use caution if simply printing old EBRB worksheets. They may refer to obsolete parts of the text, may have subtle errors, or the questions might be slightly different than you remember from just giving it a quick read. If using a worksheet you didn't write yourself, always work it out completely to be sure it's bug-free.
• Give some background, not just questions. Let them know why the activity is interesting and/or relevant to them. (Of course, you can also just to this verbally.)
• Start with a really easy and obvious question (and preferably an interesting one). Don't let the students get stuck immediately and stop caring. If they're led into starting the worksheet with a simple question or two, they become 'invested' in the activity and are more likely to stick with it.
• Leaving minimal empty space on the worksheet encourages use of the board. However, it also makes it harder for students to write their answers down and discourages individual participation.
• For large sections, give plenty of written guidance for how to solve the problems (you can't help everyone at once). For small sections, it's possible to go as far as completely omitting the directions.
• Always save time to go through the worksheet as a class! Each member of the class need to have some feedback on their answers (even if it's just you quickly running through the problems) or they will feel the activity petered out into meaninglessness. Be firm about ending the activity on time.
• The main points:
  • Engagement - Encourage students to engage actively and look at the material in new ways different from how it was presented in lecture
  • Relevance - Students want more than just an enrichment activity: be sure it's really benefiting them
  • Familiarity - Customize your worksheets to your section; as with just about everything in section, put your own personality into it
  • Fun - Worksheets are the single biggest outlet for creativity that you have as a GSI; have fun with it and you'll almost certainly get you students to actually want to do the worksheet

Enroll and complete the GSI Resource Center's Online Ethics Course. You are all required to enroll in this course and complete all five online modules during the first 3 weeks of the semester. You can do one module at a time (or all of them at once) and each module will take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to complete.

All first time ASEs (Academic Student Employees) must attend the New ASE Orientation, which will include a 30-minute orientation by the university and a 30-minute presentation by UAW Local 2865. The dates, times and locations for the Orientations can be found at http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/labor/ase_orientdate.htm

• Read Section 1.3 of Goals for "Astro 101": Report on Workshops for Department Leaders and A Society for College Science Teachers Position Statement on Introductory College-Level Science Courses and be prepared to discuss the readings as a class.

• For those who will have their first section before next class, begin the Teaching Log (a short description of what you did in section this week and some reflections on how it went).

• Arrange to attend a section of an experienced GSI sometime in the next two weeks. CC me on your email arranging a time with your experienced GSI. Print and fill out the worksheet as well.