Week 1 Reflection
So far I have greatly enjoyed my time as an UTA for ANSC250. This is my first time assisting a class and I am grateful for this opportunity to work along a prestigious professor such as Dr. Balcom. A few duties I have performed in class are assisting the professor in forming small groups for in-class assignments, collecting worksheets, and walking around the lecture hall answering any questions during discussion times. I have been working with my GTA and the other UTA to create a review slideshow for the Exam 1 review session coming up in a couple of weeks. I had the pleasure of sitting in on Maya’s lecture today, Monday Feb. 2nd. I will use this experience to modify my own teaching plans for my own lecture coming up on March 30th. I met with Dr. Balcom last Thursday for a weekly TA meeting. Up to this point, class has been smooth sailing and we are all looking forward to starting our more interesting lectures coming up this week!
Week 2 Reflection
An exciting development is happening in my role as a UTA! This past week I was introduced to grading papers for in-class participation for the first time. Since then, I have completed grading three more assignments. This kind of responsibility is empowering, but also has its downfalls. I would never have guessed that in a college classroom setting, emphasis on the term “college” here, that so many students would not answer questions to their full extent or even justify their answers. I think I have graded less than 10 papers that received full credit in a class of 65 students! This shocks me, since you would think for something as easy as participation credit, that everyone should be taking advantage of “easy points” and completing their work, especially at this level in their education. I hope the class learns what the professor expects of them when it comes to grading work, this point onward, so that I do not have to deduct as many points as I have been as of late.
Week 3 Reflection
This week marked the official start of my planning for lecture coming up on March 30th. I had a meeting with Dr. Balcom and she is impressed with my overall lesson structure and how it complies with her “flipped classroom” teaching style. Her next challenge for me is to narrow down my learning objectives into 2-3 solid points. I am finding this difficult because my topic of choice is the basic care of reptiles in an overview. This would require me to compile a ton of information into a lecture of only 50 minutes to an audience that has been scarcely introduced to this subject. Definitely a challenge, but one I am more than willingly to commit myself to.
This first exam of ANSC250 is coming up this upcoming Monday. Maya and I, as well as our GTA, have been working on a presentation for a review session this Thursday. I am excited to be conducting this review session because this will be the most I’ve ever interacted with the students enrolled in ANSC250. I remember how beneficial the review sessions were to me last Spring, and I hope I can return the favor to these new participants!
Week 7 Reflection
I have greatly enjoyed my time as an UTA for Dr. Balcom and her Companion Animal Care & Management course (ANSC250). Unfortunately, this week it was brought to our attention by our professor that a few students were suspected of plagiarism on their first exam. Dr. Balcom tends to write challenging and lengthy exams, and because of this, she has starting implementing a take-home exam question that is worth 15% of their exam grade. This was the first opportunity for students to work on their own outside the classroom to completely answer a short essay question. The question was related to “choosing companion dog breeds for a specific owner”. Dr. Balcom likes using real-life scenarios and decided to give her friend, who is currently looking for a dog breed (eyes set on a border collie), the essays from her students in order for her friend to choose one of their suggested dog breeds. Her friend was unsure of some of the suggested breeds and used wikipedia to look them and soon came to realize that many of the papers were extremely similar to the wiki pages. Dr. Balcom was appalled by this and it was found that 2-3 were likely of having plagiarized on this assignment. I never thought I would have to deal with plagiarism or the honor council when I become an UTA for a class in which Dr. Balcom teaches. In our department, she is considered a hard-core professor and teaches intense material by putting a lot of emphasis on the items she presents. That is what I had to go through this week and it was unfortunate.
Week 9 Reflection
Last Friday (4/3) the UTA’s and GTA of ANSC250 put together a review session for the second exam. We had about double the people show up for our review session and they found it be extremely beneficial for their studying needs. I did like that our professor took a furlough day last Friday so we were able to use that class time for the review session. This made it so that everyone was available to come to the review session. I personally covered the topics of ferrets, guinea pigs and reptiles (of course). I was also given the opportunity to bring in my own reptile, my pet corn snake, to class last Wednesday. This was the first time Dr. Balcom has had a live reptile in her class. Allowing the students to learn how to handle a snake and see a reptile firsthand was good supplementation to the video students watched in class about reptile handling that class period.
Week 10 Reflection
This week I am getting the opportunity to help grade exams. Dr. Balcom has only allowed her UTA’s to grade student participation within lectures, but since the GTA is extremely busy this week with multiple exams coming up, we have been given permission to assist the GTA with grading Exam 2. Dr. Balcom made it clear that she does not want the UTA’s grading the first two pages of the exam, that way we do not know which student’s exam we are actual grading just in case this influences leniency. I will be working with Tracy, the GTA of ANSC250, on Thursday from 1-2pm and again on Friday from 8-10am and from 12-1pm. She has assigned each GTA a page in which to grade so that the grading procedure remains constant and uniforml overall. I am looking forward to the extra responsibility and I am glad that Dr. Balcom is allowing her UTA’s the opportunity to grade exams at the university level. It’s pretty ironic to think that as an undergraduate student at a college is grading exams of other undergraduate students.
Week 13 Reflection
This week of class contained the third and final hourly exam to be held in ANSC250, the class in which I UTA for. It is sad to see that the semester is coming to a close and my time as a UTA for ANSC250 is ending shortly (at least until next Spring). This was the second exam I got to sit in on and assist Dr. Balcom with the proctoring of. It definitely gives you a sense of power and responsibility to be in charge of proctoring an exam for 55 students that are my own peers. Unfortunately, the day I proctored the exam was also the last time I will attend class as a UTA. My services are no longer needed by Dr. Balcom and she has allowed us to use the class time for ANSC250 to focus on the closure of the semester and impending dates of Finals Week. I am definitely going to miss sitting on my favorite class as a student and UTA, and am eagerly looking forward to next Spring where I have the opportunity to do it all over again.
Week 14 Reflection
I met with Dr. Balcom last week to go over my lesson presentation in depth, a part from the few comments she made immediately after class on the day of my presentation. I am happy to report that she is satisfied with my work as a UTA for her and strongly believes I accomplished both of my learning objectives. I know from viewing my clicker question data from the lesson day of my presentation that there was significant increase in the amount of students who felt confident in researching reptilian species and their basic care requirements. This supports Dr. Balcom’s confidence that I completed this particular learning objective within the given class time. Since she did not specifically have any suggestions for improvement in my presentation, I would like to make my entire discussion section of my lesson “flipped” into the real-life scenario of a reptile show or fair and allow students to select their new pet reptile and then use class time to prepare their own habitats for that particular species. This is my goal for when I give the presentation again next Spring semester. Dr. Balcom also recently found out that I have a relatively inclusive reptile collection of my own and she would appreciate if I brought in more of my reptile companions, besides my one corn snake, for the presentation as well. I am going to implement both of these modifications for my lesson when I am a UTA again for ANSC250. I look forward to seeing this outcome, because I believe it will have even stronger results than my current lesson set-up.
So far I have greatly enjoyed my time as an UTA for ANSC250. This is my first time assisting a class and I am grateful for this opportunity to work along a prestigious professor such as Dr. Balcom. A few duties I have performed in class are assisting the professor in forming small groups for in-class assignments, collecting worksheets, and walking around the lecture hall answering any questions during discussion times. I have been working with my GTA and the other UTA to create a review slideshow for the Exam 1 review session coming up in a couple of weeks. I had the pleasure of sitting in on Maya’s lecture today, Monday Feb. 2nd. I will use this experience to modify my own teaching plans for my own lecture coming up on March 30th. I met with Dr. Balcom last Thursday for a weekly TA meeting. Up to this point, class has been smooth sailing and we are all looking forward to starting our more interesting lectures coming up this week!
Week 2 Reflection
An exciting development is happening in my role as a UTA! This past week I was introduced to grading papers for in-class participation for the first time. Since then, I have completed grading three more assignments. This kind of responsibility is empowering, but also has its downfalls. I would never have guessed that in a college classroom setting, emphasis on the term “college” here, that so many students would not answer questions to their full extent or even justify their answers. I think I have graded less than 10 papers that received full credit in a class of 65 students! This shocks me, since you would think for something as easy as participation credit, that everyone should be taking advantage of “easy points” and completing their work, especially at this level in their education. I hope the class learns what the professor expects of them when it comes to grading work, this point onward, so that I do not have to deduct as many points as I have been as of late.
Week 3 Reflection
This week marked the official start of my planning for lecture coming up on March 30th. I had a meeting with Dr. Balcom and she is impressed with my overall lesson structure and how it complies with her “flipped classroom” teaching style. Her next challenge for me is to narrow down my learning objectives into 2-3 solid points. I am finding this difficult because my topic of choice is the basic care of reptiles in an overview. This would require me to compile a ton of information into a lecture of only 50 minutes to an audience that has been scarcely introduced to this subject. Definitely a challenge, but one I am more than willingly to commit myself to.
This first exam of ANSC250 is coming up this upcoming Monday. Maya and I, as well as our GTA, have been working on a presentation for a review session this Thursday. I am excited to be conducting this review session because this will be the most I’ve ever interacted with the students enrolled in ANSC250. I remember how beneficial the review sessions were to me last Spring, and I hope I can return the favor to these new participants!
Week 7 Reflection
I have greatly enjoyed my time as an UTA for Dr. Balcom and her Companion Animal Care & Management course (ANSC250). Unfortunately, this week it was brought to our attention by our professor that a few students were suspected of plagiarism on their first exam. Dr. Balcom tends to write challenging and lengthy exams, and because of this, she has starting implementing a take-home exam question that is worth 15% of their exam grade. This was the first opportunity for students to work on their own outside the classroom to completely answer a short essay question. The question was related to “choosing companion dog breeds for a specific owner”. Dr. Balcom likes using real-life scenarios and decided to give her friend, who is currently looking for a dog breed (eyes set on a border collie), the essays from her students in order for her friend to choose one of their suggested dog breeds. Her friend was unsure of some of the suggested breeds and used wikipedia to look them and soon came to realize that many of the papers were extremely similar to the wiki pages. Dr. Balcom was appalled by this and it was found that 2-3 were likely of having plagiarized on this assignment. I never thought I would have to deal with plagiarism or the honor council when I become an UTA for a class in which Dr. Balcom teaches. In our department, she is considered a hard-core professor and teaches intense material by putting a lot of emphasis on the items she presents. That is what I had to go through this week and it was unfortunate.
Week 9 Reflection
Last Friday (4/3) the UTA’s and GTA of ANSC250 put together a review session for the second exam. We had about double the people show up for our review session and they found it be extremely beneficial for their studying needs. I did like that our professor took a furlough day last Friday so we were able to use that class time for the review session. This made it so that everyone was available to come to the review session. I personally covered the topics of ferrets, guinea pigs and reptiles (of course). I was also given the opportunity to bring in my own reptile, my pet corn snake, to class last Wednesday. This was the first time Dr. Balcom has had a live reptile in her class. Allowing the students to learn how to handle a snake and see a reptile firsthand was good supplementation to the video students watched in class about reptile handling that class period.
Week 10 Reflection
This week I am getting the opportunity to help grade exams. Dr. Balcom has only allowed her UTA’s to grade student participation within lectures, but since the GTA is extremely busy this week with multiple exams coming up, we have been given permission to assist the GTA with grading Exam 2. Dr. Balcom made it clear that she does not want the UTA’s grading the first two pages of the exam, that way we do not know which student’s exam we are actual grading just in case this influences leniency. I will be working with Tracy, the GTA of ANSC250, on Thursday from 1-2pm and again on Friday from 8-10am and from 12-1pm. She has assigned each GTA a page in which to grade so that the grading procedure remains constant and uniforml overall. I am looking forward to the extra responsibility and I am glad that Dr. Balcom is allowing her UTA’s the opportunity to grade exams at the university level. It’s pretty ironic to think that as an undergraduate student at a college is grading exams of other undergraduate students.
Week 13 Reflection
This week of class contained the third and final hourly exam to be held in ANSC250, the class in which I UTA for. It is sad to see that the semester is coming to a close and my time as a UTA for ANSC250 is ending shortly (at least until next Spring). This was the second exam I got to sit in on and assist Dr. Balcom with the proctoring of. It definitely gives you a sense of power and responsibility to be in charge of proctoring an exam for 55 students that are my own peers. Unfortunately, the day I proctored the exam was also the last time I will attend class as a UTA. My services are no longer needed by Dr. Balcom and she has allowed us to use the class time for ANSC250 to focus on the closure of the semester and impending dates of Finals Week. I am definitely going to miss sitting on my favorite class as a student and UTA, and am eagerly looking forward to next Spring where I have the opportunity to do it all over again.
Week 14 Reflection
I met with Dr. Balcom last week to go over my lesson presentation in depth, a part from the few comments she made immediately after class on the day of my presentation. I am happy to report that she is satisfied with my work as a UTA for her and strongly believes I accomplished both of my learning objectives. I know from viewing my clicker question data from the lesson day of my presentation that there was significant increase in the amount of students who felt confident in researching reptilian species and their basic care requirements. This supports Dr. Balcom’s confidence that I completed this particular learning objective within the given class time. Since she did not specifically have any suggestions for improvement in my presentation, I would like to make my entire discussion section of my lesson “flipped” into the real-life scenario of a reptile show or fair and allow students to select their new pet reptile and then use class time to prepare their own habitats for that particular species. This is my goal for when I give the presentation again next Spring semester. Dr. Balcom also recently found out that I have a relatively inclusive reptile collection of my own and she would appreciate if I brought in more of my reptile companions, besides my one corn snake, for the presentation as well. I am going to implement both of these modifications for my lesson when I am a UTA again for ANSC250. I look forward to seeing this outcome, because I believe it will have even stronger results than my current lesson set-up.