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<!-- DO NOT EDIT...IT'S AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED AND WILL BE OVERWRITTEN -->
<TITLE>CS GSI Needs Assessment Survey Results: Fall 2000</TITLE>
<body bgcolor = "FFFFFF">
<H1>Computer Science GSI Needs Assessment Survey Results: Fall 2000</h1>
<a href = "mailto:[email protected],[email protected]">
<address>Dan Garcia and Andrew Begel</address></a>
<h2>Here are the answers! There were a total of 19 survey responses.</h2>
<ol>
<br><li><b>Please describe any teaching experience you may have had prior to coming to Berkeley. For each experience, list: (a) what level (b) what subject and (c) for how long you taught: </b>
<br><ol>
<li>none
<li>I was a reader for the UCDavis equivalent of CS186. Graded
projects, and held office hours for students to come speak about their
grades.Or before a project was due, to offer advice. One quarter.
<li>1 year high school teaching (math, computer science)
<li>3 semesters TAing introductory CS programming class. 2 semesters
just helping in lab, 1 semester lab + grading. No review sessions or
discussion sections.
<li>Had taken a three classes of the education department on teaching
science, phycololy of students, handling student failures. All three
classes werepurely theoretical.
<li>none
<li>a. undergraduate b. computer sciencec. one semester
<li>No actual teaching; some experience giving presentations and at
invited speaking engagements.
<li>One semester of teaching 61c-like course at another university. I
was a master's level student at the time. I had to instruct about 25
students.
<li>Tutor in the Math/CSci lab. Subjects:Math from algebra to
calculasCSci first and second semester programmingTime: 1 1/2 years
<li>none <li>I TA'd a class similar to CS61C for 3 semesters; that
involved helping students with lab and homework assignments, and
grading homeworks and tests. I taught that same class for one summer,
which involved the above responsibilities as well as lecturing.
<li>7 lectures in "Topics in multimedia". My topic was "Multimedia
servers". It was undergrad, senior level class Taught over a span of 4
months.Private tutions to high school students - science and
maths. Taught for 4 months.
<li>freshman calculus, 1 year freshman physics for engineers, 1 year
<li>NONE
<li>MIT Educational Studies Program (MIT students design and teach the
courses, 7th-12th graders take the courses): Artificial Intelligence
(one semester),SAT Preparation--Math (two semesters)
</ol>
<br><li><b>How many semesters have you taught at Berkeley? </b>
<br><ol>
<li>2
<li>1
<li>1
<li>1
<li>8+
<li>1
<li>1
<li>1
<li>4
<li>1
<li>1
<li>1
<li>2
<li>2
<li>4
<li>1
<li>1
<li>0
<li>4
</ol>
<br><li><b>Please fill in your prior experience you've had as a GSI at Berkeley:</b>
<p><center><table border = "1" cellpadding = "2" cellspacing = "1">
<tr><td><b>Course Taught</b></td><td><b>Number of Times</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS3</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS60C/CS61B - Data Structures</td><td>Taught: 2 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS61A - SICP</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS61B</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS61C</td><td>Taught: 2 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS150 - Digital Design</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS152</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS152 - Computer Architecture</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS152 - Computer Architecture</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS160 - User Interfaces</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: cs162</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS164 - Compilers</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: cs170</td><td>Taught: 2 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS172 - Computability and Complexity</td><td>Taught: 2 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS172 - Computability and Complexity</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: cs174</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: cs184</td><td>Taught: 3 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS186</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS186</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS188</td><td>Taught: 2 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS188</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS188 - Artificial Intelligence</td><td>Taught: 2 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS252</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS252 - Grad Comp Architecture</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: CS252 - NTU telecourse</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: EECS150</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
<tr><td>Course: math55</td><td>Taught: 1 time(s).</td></tr>
</table></center></p>
<br><li><b>Please list the range of responsibilities you have had as a GSI:</b>
<br><ul>
<li>Answering newsgroup / email questions: 18
<li>Developing / maintaining course software: 10
<li>Conducting discussion sessions: 17
<li>Giving lectures: 7
<li>Grading assignments / projects: 16
<li>Grading exams: 18
<li>Holding office hours: 17
<li>Creating assignments / projects: 11
<li>Creating exams: 14
<li>Supervising labs: 8
<li>Maintaining course web page: 12
<li>Other (please describe below)
<ol>
<li>note that all of the above were done over phone or e-mail
<li>Holding review session (usually 2 per semester; one before the midterm exam and one before the final)
<li>holding extra office hours based on need.
</ol>
</ul><br><li><b>What type of departmental programs to prepare GSIs to teach were available to you as a new GSI?</b>
<br><ul>
<li>CS301: 13
<li>CS302: 0
<li>Consultation with your professor: 11
<li>Videotaping: 3
<li>Workshops: 6
<li>Other (please describe below)
<ol>
<li>Videotaping was available, but i never had the time
to look into it seriously.
<li>consultation with honored GSI.
<li>workshops prior to the beginning of the semester.
<li>Peer review/observation
</ol>
</ul><br><li><b>Which of these activities did you find helpful and in what way? </b>
<br><ol>
<li>All of them were helpful. I think talking with the instructors
was the most helpful, because it gave me a sense of what information
Ineeded to convey. CS301 was a little too high-level for me; if
I'dbeen able to follow the CS301 advice, it would have been
great.Unfortunately, I felt I was fighting a battle in the trenches,
withsome difficult material and students who didn't all want to learn.
<li>CS301 - nice to talk to others facing the same issues as I, at the
same time. (How do I keep students from falling asleep in class?)And
to get ideas right at the same time I could implement them.
(I'dprobably not have thought to hand out index cards for anonymous
critiquesof me; and, later, to allow anonymous pre-exam questions on
confusingtopics.)Talking with professor was useful for general advice,
for advice onthe tone to take (for example, with regrade requests),
etc.
<li>CS301 -- good to discuss my experiences with others, and to find
out the experiences of others. Good advice from Brian, and sometimes
from the other students.
<li>CS301 was interesting in general but did no necessarily help much with
practical issues. In addition, it would be better to take it BEFORE
teaching!
<li>I took CS301 my first semester as a grad student, and although I
had TA'ed once before I don't think I was mature enough to appreciate
it very much. Itseemed more like a hurdle to jump than anything else.
<li>I didn't use any outside preparation.. Maybe I should have.
<li>The workshops were nearly always at a time I could not attend, so
I attended none of them.I never got around to videotaping.It was
always very useful to talk to the professor.CS301 gave many
interesting ideas and things to think about.It also made it possible
to get opinions on various items.
<li>While those activities were available to me, I did not take part
in them.
<li>videotaping, consultation with honored GSI.
<li>CS301 was only slightly helpful; I didn't really get much out of
it, but it allayed some fears.
<li>the workshops in the beginning of the sem was very helpful - they
answered many simple but extremely important things like what is
partiality?CS 301 was very helpful in the sense that we knew who to
turn to in case of any doubts/and what is appropriate and what is not
so inappropriate.
<li>Peer review/observation was the most useful of
the available resources.
<li>Meeting with the professor at the beginning of the semester and
with the professor and other TAs during the semester helped me
maintain a high-levelperspective on what we were supposed to
teach---this helped me plan what Ishould do in my discussions and
office hours on a week-to-week basis.
</ol>
<br><li><b>What type of faculty guidance and evaluation did you receive and to what extent was this helpful? </b>
<br><ol>
<li>The instructors talked to me about what they wanted me to convey in
discussion sections and about how the students were doing. I
foundthese conversations to be very helpful.
<li>See #6. Professor also kept us on track, and reminded us when
somethingwas falling through the cracks (like checking the newsgroup).
<li>* HKN review: not that helpful since numbers alone don't say much
* Direct feedback from professor along the way: very very useful with
issues such as time management, required depth, difficulty of
exams/assignments etc
<li>1-on-1 guidance from course professor, who is my academic advisor.
<li>Faculty guidance varied widely from one faculty member to
another. One basically told us (the GSIs) to talk about "whatever"
during our discussion sections. Others had clear ideas of the sort of
material that they wanted covered. Similarly, some faculty are much
more involved than others with creating & grading homework, projects,
and exams.
<li>A little guidance in terms of giving some suggestions on how to
deal with students. I didn't receive much in the way of "this is how
you should teach".It was pretty much assumed that we could do that on
our own.As for the guidance with how to deal with students, it was
helpful, becausesome of that is political. (i.e., don't tell them
something that they willuse against you.. that sort of thing. :))
<li>It was useful to know what I was doing wrong. Also, being able to
bounce ideas off others,or to get new ideas was nice.
<li>Little / none was received. But little / none was asked by me.
<li>Er, the usual, I guess? It was a combination of meeting before the classes started to discuss expectations and basic operational procedures. Most of the feedback during the classes was informal: the prof telling us what was going good or not so good.
<li>my prof seemed pleased with me. i could go to him in case of any problem but there never really arose a need.
<li>little to no guidance needed
<li>Largely the same as above.
</ol>
<br><li><b>If you were teaching CS301, which topics would you cover? (please check all that apply):</b>
<br><ul>
<li>How to coordinate lab/discussion section with lecture: 9
<li>How to develop a course syllabus: 5
<li>How to explain concepts effectively: 9
<li>The faculty-GSI working relationship: 8
<li>What to do on the first day of class: 10
<li>How to grade efficiently and fairly: 13
<li>How to perform group counseling: 5
<li>How to train groups to work well together: 8
<li>How to identify and intervene with struggling students early enough to help: 16
<li>How to design and lead a successful discussion: 15
<li>How to develop an effective lesson plan: 6
<li>How to conduct effective review sessions before exams: 6
<li>How to tell whether students are having difficulty overall: 15
<li>How to tell whether students are learning what I teach: 15
<li>How to develop a teaching portfolio: 6
<li>How to use technology (computers / multimedia / interactive demos) in teaching: 5
<li>How to construct fair test questions: 8
<li>How to encourage students to think critically: 13
<li>Other (please describe below)
<ol>
<li>CS301 is really aimed at TAs. CS302 is the more appropriate forum
for things TAs have no control over (like the course syllabus, and
integrating discussion with lecture).
<li>How to deal with student complaints about grading.
<li>I think there should be some guidance in how to deal with stressed
out undergrads. I found that sometimes I wasn't sensitive enough to
their concerns, and was sometimes too critical of them. Basically,
GSI's should be taught what level of competence and motivation is to
be expected, and how to grade/ teach for that.
<li>How to elicit questions on what the students don't know. How to
get people to come to office hours. How to knock the fear of TAs out
of them.
<li>How to deal with plagerism
<li>Some of the things in the above list (eg, how to explain ideas
effectively) are so difficult to teach that I don't think CS301 is the
right place for that. Other things (eg, how to use technology to
teach, how to create fair test questions) might only be applicable to
GSIs in certain classes, and therefore might best be left out of
CS301. The things CS301 should cover, in my opinion, fall into two
categories: the things that it CAN cover very well, and the things
with which many new GSIs have problems or concerns.
<li>the first class of 301 should be before the first week of classes
- so as to prepare for the first discussion section.
<li>Many aspects of teaching are probably functions of the particular
courses being taught. In CS301, they may want to explain everything in
terms of one or two lower division courses such as CS61A and CS61B. I
suggest lower division courses because all CS graduate students should
be qualified to TA those courses unlike the upper division courses.
It would be good to teach aspects of what faculty members do when
teaching (e.g., writing a course syllabus, planning lectures, etc.)
because many graduate students will have to do this after they
graduate.
</ol>
</ul><br><li><b>How could the department improve its preparation of GSIs for their various teaching responsibilities? </b>
<br><ol>
<li>Pay them more? :)
<li>- Someone should maintain a portfolio for the GSIs of each class
including material from previous years, guidelines, tools etc- Some of
us will go into teaching once we graduate. Maybe someone
<li>I think a course on how to teach, like CS301, is a good
idea. However, it was about the lowest priority thing I had to do when
I took it. (see my answer for Q11)
<li>Somehow i seemed to keep finding out what i needed to know a
little later than i would have liked. I wasn't prepared for the
initial stress and confusion of teaching such a bigcourse as 61A (big
both in number of students and in amountof course material). It would
have been helpful to have
<li>More readers and more GSI's. I was instructing almost 60
students, which meant 2 separate sections, and 12 or so groups. That
was a lot of gradingand meetings for one person to handle.
<li>Sample discussions. Perhaps do a dry run?
<li>Provide a short 1-2 hour perspective of what the department's
views on the goals of a course and the exams given in the course. Some
faculty teaching these courses have a tendency to make their exams
"weeding-out" exams where survival is only for the fittest. This
conflicts with my opinion of what an exam is or how grades should be
assigned. It would help to know what my employer's (i.e., the
department and _not_ the professor) view of this is. How does one
balance the department's "requirements" on a grading curve with fair
and equitable grading?
<li>Find enough readers for the courses, otherwise, GSIs may take the work of both
<li>I would possibly like to see a required meeting (or meetings?)
with GSIs and their profs before the semester. I think this usually
happens, but it seems very informal (and maybe some profs skip it?).
A set of guidelines, similar in structure to the graduate evaluation
forms, could ensure that all the important issues are covered in this
meeting.
<li>(1) helping GSIs evaluate each other (guidance, forms, taping
resources, making this a requirement, etc.)
<li>I can't think of anything that the department can do at a
departmental level.
</ol>
<br><li><b>What type of faculty mentoring would you find helpful for your teaching? </b>
<br><ol>
<li>I found simply having someone to go to with the tricky matters of
emphasis, of how to handle students who are, for example, cheating,
and that sort of thing was fabulously helpful. Took a lot of pressure
off. (Off of me, anyway.)
<li>It would be nice if advisors attended a few lectures/discussion
sections of their students to provide feedback and monitor
progress/problems.
<li>I think grad students with little teaching experience could be
helped by a cooperative approach to their discussion sections and/or
labs, where they gotfeedback from the instructor about what they
should cover, slides or othermaterials they're going to use, etc. This
would increase the burden for faculty who supervised inexperienced
GSIs, but I think it would decrease the burden for supervising more
experienced GSIs since they would be better trained.
<li>How to connect to students and show them genuine empathy. I
thought we (including the professor) were always just trying to stay
above water, and did not take care of the individual students too
well.
<li>Suggestions on how to explain things. How a discussion really
works. (I never attended one before I lead one,so I had to figure out
as I went along.)
<li>Faculty mentoring that recognizes that 20hr/week GSI's have better
things to do with their life outside the 20hrs/week they spend
teaching. Many teaching
<li>One professor recommended the GSI Teaching and Resource Center to
me, which was helpful.
<li>I think the best way to do this is to GSI a higher-level class
where there is a little more freedom, and have the prof convey more of
the "prof-type" tasks to the GSI. This should really only be done if
the GSI requests it, since those tasks go beyond normal GSI duties
(and should really only be done by someone that is interested in doing
them). The tasks should include things like creating exams (with the
prof, so the prof can describe how best to do this); lecturing (not
just filling in for the prof, but lecturing while the prof is there to
get feedback); dealing with students, both during the prof's regular
office hours and during special meetings (eg, if a student has been
caught cheating or has other concerns; in these cases, it would be
useful for the GSI to be there even if they don't contribute anything.
I suspect that there are some privacy issues related to this for which
the university has guidelines, but perhaps the prof could ask, when
setting up the meeting, if it would be OK for the GSI to sit in).
<li>most faculty mentoring is not particularly helpful.
<li>I think that meeting with the faculty member teaching the course
and the other GSI's would be best. That way we can all discuss what
issues have popped up in the process of fulfulling our roles in the
course and can help each other. Giving each GSI a chance to lecture
may be helpful too just to expose each of them to this. I got a chance
to lecture CS188 once and it was very educational for me.
</ol>
<br><li><b>Are there any additional thoughts you'd like to add? Comments on this survey? </b>
<br><ol>
<li>Good idea to actually DO a survey!
<li>Basically faculty for a course have the ability to provide mentoring
<li>GSIs have 3 main tasks in their lives: 1. research, 2. their own
classes, 3. the class they're teaching. And the fact is that in this
department the priority is clearly in that order. I
<li>Sections were ridiculously overfilled at the beginning of the term
and trying to manage students dropping and switchingsections was
troublesome and time-wasting. Some peoplebelieved TeleBears and made
their changes there, while weactually operated in a completely
different reality. If 61Acontinues to circumvent the TeleBears system
for managingclass capacity, something else must be put in its place
sowe can at least know who is in what section. I spent a lotof time
at the beginning of term just figuring out who was still in the course,
who was in what section, and what theirnames and logins were.The
grading software also badly needs to be rewritten. I mightconsider
doing it myself if i have some time. A little time spent putting
together helpful software tools for keeping track of all the students
and their grades could go a long way.Because my reader was often
behind and we didn't communicate much,i was less in touch with
students' progress than i would haveliked. I'm afraid to suggest it,
but i think i would have donea significantly better job both teaching
and grading for onesection than just teaching for two sections. I
appreciate havinga reader; i guess i just wish he had been motivated
to stay upto date more often. Part of the issue, again, was not
knowinghow many sections we were going to have at the beginning of
thesemester. I don't know -- perhaps some online tools for
keeping everyone up to date would have helped a bit here, too.
<li>You often only ask how item x was helpful or useful. Why not ask
how item x could be improved? CS301 is very useful.
<li>It would help if GSI's were paid at the same scale as GSRs. It
sucks having to pay $1000 in tuition as a penalty for teaching instead
of doing research.
</ol>
</ol>
<hr>
<address>
WWW Maven: <a href="http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~ddgarcia/">Dan Garcia</a> (<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>) <a href="http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/[email protected]"><img src="gifs/finger.gif" WIDTH=15 HEIGHT=16 ALIGN=absmiddle></a> Send me <a href="http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~ddgarcia/feedback.html">feedback</a>
</address>
<p>
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