TA Video Consultation (Spring 2004)

The TA video experience was simultaneously one of the more painful experiences of my graduate education and quite possible the most useful teaching exercise that I have been experienced. It is a very rare opportunity to see yourself teach, as your students see you. It allows you to closely examine both the larger issues of how you run the classroom, through planning of content and level of formality, but also allows you to observe small mannerisms and characteristics that might need changing. While the video showed me that I did many things well, like use of multiple modes of learning and affirming what my students did know, while still correcting incomplete ideas, there were other things that I could clearly see that needed work. I had a small problem with time management, where we had to rush through a few final activities in the final minutes. Related to time management, it would be good to leave myself time and prepare to bring ideas back to the "big picture" and summarize for the final few minutes of the discussion. Additionally, while I did affirm what things students knew when they were struggling with concepts, I used positive reinforcement with the better students a little too sparingly. While I was worried about a few mannerisms and that they might be distracting to students, this appeared not to be the case. However, I did not even realize that I was letting my voice trail off at the end of some statements and correcting this may help in students hear and comprehending more of what I have to say. While it took me some time and self-motivation to force my self to watch the video and attend the consultation, I have now watched the video many times and continue to pick out things that I feel I did well and others that I need to continue to work on to make me more effective in the classroom.