Course Description
This Introduction to Sociological Theory course was offered as a two-semester course using a combination of large lecture and seminar. As a Teaching Assistant, I was responsible for creating all the activities and lessons for the weekly seminars following the lecture.
Narrative
This course did not offer large scale electronic surveys for the seminar experience so I found myself developing various strategies to collect feedback from learners in the weekly sessions. The lack of control on the lecture portion meant that I was also learning "with" students as I prepare the weekly seminar lessons.
Sample Feedback
The following snippets came from a general feedback survey that included handwritten notes which was meant to include the full TA group evaluation (included 5 TAs):
"Andre was very helpful. He explained things very well and answered all my questions and concerns I had, especially about my essay.”
"He (Andre) was very kind and knowledgeable about course material"
"I wish the TAs would be a bit more detailed in emails (but then again, it was a few days before the paper was due so it was ok.)"
I wish I was in Andre's group, [redacted name of other TA] does not do a formal review of the lecture and expects us to know everything a thte start of the term. I hear great things about Andre's seminars. Can I switch sections for Winter?
What did I learn from this experience?
While most of this paper feedback has been lost with time, the lessons learned remind part of my practice.
Lesson One - Navigating the Co-Teaching Dynamic...
The use of multiple TAs to facilitate the learning experience demonstrated the importance of co-teaching strategies as many of us implemented different strategies in our spaces. This taught me to be vulnerable by sharing my wins and losses in engaging students which ultimately made me a stronger educator.
Lesson Two - A Flipping Failure...
Many students felt distant from large theoretical frameworks/concepts and felt they were unable to participate in my initial seminars. I did keep one hand-scribbled note in my digital files that seems to encapsulate my first month which read:
"Can you just explain things in plain English so I can understand them? I still don't understand what these people are saying - Weber, Marx, or Foucault?!?"
My intention of engaging in lively debate during the seminars failed miserably as I did not account for the complexity of the larger learning experience within lectures. Without knowing, I was implementing a poorly designed flipped classroom whereby I was expecting learners to gather all the appropriate knowledge prior to meeting me. I would soon correct my errors by re-engaging the group in succinct summaries by pulling on current events to contextualize the concepts with more grounded examples.
This experience taught me the importance of course design and ensuring that all learning experiences are adequately scaled across student groups (i.e., lecture vs seminar).