During the first week of Spring semester of 2019, I approached my professor to become a teaching assistant for the Python class that I took. One week later, I attended a lab session for my first teaching assistant position.

My roles included proctoring lab session, grading lab assignments, and proctoring office hours.

The experience taught me much about being a teaching assistant. To start, I learned to guide students to their solutions without directly giving them answers. I worked on my teaching technique each time I was approached with a problem during one of my three lab sessions or office hours.

Holding office hours also taught me how to manage my time with multiple students. During the nights before the projects were due, office hours would be packed full of students. I had to spend no more than 5 minutes or less with each student answering their questions or debugging their code. Overall, this improved my ability to debug quickly and answer questions rapidly. A tiresome process, but ultimately, a rewarding one.

Testimonials

Being my first semester as a teaching assistant, I received encouraging reviews from my students. Here are some of the reviews that I received.

When he did come to answer questions, he was helpful and tried his best to solve problems.

The instructor answered questions well, and was very helpful in doing such.

In lab, you were helpful whenever students had questions. You explained the labs well and were patient with every student. Night office hours were also extremely helpful, thanks!!