Strategies To Get To Know Your Students

The learning goals for this sections are as follows:

  • To know the basic information about your students: names, major, year.
  • To share basic information about yourself: name, major, year, research interests, contact information.
  • To recognize the different abilities of the students so that you can teach to their individual abilities, goals, interests and motivations.
  • To develop rapport by talking with your students on a one-on-one basis (during and/or outside of class).

Material to add here:
a. Present a video on getting to know your students on the first day. Have actors act out the text from McKeachie’s Teaching Tips, page 23-24.
b. Same as above.
c. Present a verbal scenario in which a TA “recognizes” the different abilities of the students week by week. For example, during the first week, TA gets to know the students. (provide text similar to: http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/faqs/motivatingstudents/abilities.html).
By week 2, the TA notices who participates in class and who doesn’t. By week 3, the TA has graded a few assignments and knows who puts effort into their assignments and who does not. Then offer strategies to teach to the individual abilities, goals, interests, and motivations taken from McKeachie’s Chapter 14- pages 172-184.
d. Provide text that outlines the following strategies recommended by McGlynn (http://www.magnapubs.com/pressreleases/nov1.html) for developing rapport with students, and create small video clips that show the TA implementing these strategies:

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