Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering | ChE 495

 
Fall 2005 Winter 2006
 

 

ChE 495A Fall 2005
Teaching Assistant Training Seminar
Syllabus

Class Location: 5513 BOELTER HALL or 1044 WGYOUNG HALL
Class Schedule: Thursdays 3:00pm-5:00pm

Instructor: Adiwinata Gani
Office: 4264 Boelter Hall
Phone: (310) 825-4189
Email:
Office Hour: appointment by email

Faculty Advisor: Professor Panagiotis D. Christofides
Office: 5532-F Boelter Hall
Email: pdc @ seas.ucla.edu
Office Hour: appointment by email

Course Description:
This course is for new and experienced teaching assistants in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department. It is a special course for teaching assistants designed to deal with problems and techniques of communicating chemical engineering principles, concepts, and methods to chemical engineering students. It also deals with the preparation, organization, and presentation of the materials to the students by the teaching assistants, and includes grading, advising, and rapport with the students. Ideas and techniques learned are applied and evaluated in the recitation sections of each teaching assistant. In addition, this course is also designed to improve quality of individual graduate student, for example: learning new techniques, new softwares, new skills, and knowledge that can be applied toward his/her teaching experience as well as his/her research experience.

Course Requirements:
This is a 2 unit course. Meetings are arranged on a weekly basis during the quarter, 2 hours each time. The grading basis is S/U. The participants are expected to attend full-session, although one class may be missed with a valid excuse.

Course Philosophy:
Most graduate student will become a TA as part of the department's requirement. But, HOW TO BECOME A GREAT TA? Ask yourself of what you would expect from your TA if you were the student in that class.

Teaching Assistant Resources:

  1. SEASnet Lab – http://www.seas.ucla.edu/seasnet – help@seas.ucla.edu
  2. PDF scanner – SEASnet Lab at 2664 Boelter Hall
  3. Flatbed scanner – SEASnet Lab at 2664 Boelter Hall
  4. CourseWeb – contact Orachat Chieu ( orachat@seas.ucla.edu )
  5. Remote Desktop to SEASnet computers – remote.seas.ucla.edu
  6. Microsoft (MSDN) softwares – http://download.seas.ucla.edu
  7. Bruin Online (BOL) softwares – http://www.bol.ucla.edu/software
  8. Wink – Free tutorial & presentation creation software (as an alternative to the powerful and expensive programs of Macromedia Captivate (formerly: RoboDemo) and Camtasia) – http://www.debugmode.com/wink
  9. Microsoft Producer – an Office PowerPoint 2003 add-in to combine and synchronize audio and video for presentation and streaming online
  10. Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department's Software Engineer –
    contact Larry Taylor ( ltaylor@seas.ucla.edu )
  11. Parallel computing – Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department's Dalton cluster –
    contact Larry Taylor ( ltaylor@seas.ucla.edu )
  12. Audio Visual service – http://www.matserv.ucla.edu/Order_Services/AVS_MSR/avs_msr.html – contact Marlon Williams – ( marlonw@ea.ucla.edu )
  13. Multimedia Lab – 3760 Boelter Hall – Reservation: email ( sched@ea.ucla.edu )
  14. Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department's Conference Room – 5513 Boelter Hall – contact Victoria Corrin – ( vcorrin@ea.ucla.edu ) – http://www.ea.ucla.edu/~che/cal/rooms/entry.htm

Course Schedule:

Week/Date
Class Description
Note
1. Oct. 6, 2005 Introduction & resources 1044 WGYOUNG
2. Oct. 13, 2005 CourseWeb & technology services 5513 BOELTER HALL
3. Oct. 20, 2005 Lecturing, grading, and issues during office hours 1044 WGYOUNG

4. Oct. 28, 2005

 Sexual harassment & academic integrity Sequoia Room Faculty Center (10-12)
5. Nov. 3, 2005 No meeting (AIChE conference) -
6. Nov. 10, 2005 Mini course & mid-quarter evaluation 1044 WGYOUNG
7. Nov. 17, 2005 Counseling info by Student Psychological Services 5513 BOELTER HALL
8. Nov. 24, 2005 No meeting (Thanksgiving Day) -
9. Dec. 1, 2005 Discussion session TA taping Online
10. Dec. 8, 2005 Finals 5513 BOELTER HALL

Detailed Course Outline:

Week 1 – October 6, 2005
Introduction & resources

  • Course introduction
  • TA responsibilities/Faculty perspective/Undergraduate perspective
  • Are you ready? Have you had any teaching experiences?
  • Campus resources
  • Mid-quarter TA evaluation from students
  • Handout on academic dishonesty [pdf]
  • Handout on professional behavior [pdf]
  • OID TA mini grant application [pdf]

Week 2 – October 13, 2005
CourseWeb & technology services

  • Session by Rex Lorenzo from SEASnet

Week 3 – October 20, 2005
Lecturing, grading, and issues during office hours

  • Teaching aid
  • Discussion leading
  • Designing homework problems and grading homework
  • Proctoring and grading exams
  • Designing projects and grading projects
  • Grading consistency
  • Re-grades?
  • Role of office hours
  • How to hold effective office hours
  • Dos and don'ts in office hours
  • Mini scenarios [pdf]

Week 4 – October 28, 2005
Sexual harassment and academic integrity

  • Workshop by Office of the Sexual Harassment and Office of the Dean of Students at the California Room Faculty Center (Friday @ 10:00am-noon)

Week 5– Nov. 3, 2005
No meeting due to AIChE Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, OH

Week 6– Nov. 10, 2005
Mini course and Mid-quarter TA evaluation

  • Mid-quarter TA Performance Evaluation form [pdf]

Week 7 – Nov. 17, 2005
Counseling information

  • Session by Alan Nagamoto (Student Psychological Services)

Week 8 – Nov. 24, 2005
No meeting due to Thanksgivings holiday

Week 9 – Dec. 1, 2005
Discussion Session TA Taping

Introducing the second part of ChE 495, which is ChE 495B (Teach with Technology for Teaching Assistant) in the Winter 2006 if you'd like to register in the class, we will use technology for our last assignment in this class.

You will see a clip (duration: 15 minutes) of your fellow TA, Mr. Wojcicki, doing his discussion session of ChE CM 145.

Click here to see the clip (100MB). Requirement: Windows XP, Windows Media Player, IE6 or FireFox browser, Internet connection for the streaming video.

If you notice, the video you will be watching is streamed (downloading while you watching) using mms:// prefix so you do not need to wait until all 100MB video file finish downloading to watch.

The Assignment:

Please write down and email me, agani AT ucla.edu, what you think of the following:

  • Did the TA in the video come to class well prepared?
  • Did the TA in the video encourage class participation?
  • Were you able to understand and hear the presentation well?
  • What were the positives that the TA in the video do in his discussion section (keep in mind that his discussion session was on Friday 8AM?
  • What suggestions would you give the TA in the video to improve his performance?

Week 10 – December 8, 2005
Finals

  • Issues towards the end of the quarter
  • Interaction with faculty on final grading
  • Leading review sessions
  • Self-evaluation of the quarter
  • Suggestions to the seminar

 
© Professor Panagiotis D. Christofides Lab at University of California, Los Angeles. All Rights Reserved.