What would you do?

1. What would you do? Scenarios for a Teaching Assistant (modeled on some questions at http://www.ust.hk/celt/ta/taguide/exercise/selfex.htm)

2. What do you do in the first lab session? • There is nothing important to teach. Go to the lab, tell the students your name, office hours, etc. and then dismiss the class • Introduce yourself, including your experience at teaching the subject and why you are excited about the subject. Describe what a typical lab will be like • Organize some activities for students to get acquainted and set a friendly climate • Tell the students you will not actually teach in the lab sessions, instead you will spend most of the time answering their questions. If they have no questions, they don't have to come

3. During class, two students at the back are talking to each other. Their voices get louder and louder. What do you do? • Do nothing, just continue your activity • Increase your voice gradually and walk close to the two students • Halt the activity and wait for the students to stop talking • Warn the two students that you will ask them to leave if they continue to talk

4. After class, one student tells you that you teach too fast in the class. What would you do in the next meeting? • Do nothing, maintain the same speed of teaching • Ask the student to prepare before coming to the next class • Slow down your speed of teaching and re-organize your main points • Informally ask some other students for their feeling about your speed of teaching

5. In a lab session, a group has written incorrect code so they did not get the correct output. They ask you why. What do you do? • Write the code yourself and show them • Do not give them any help and ask them to explain their result in their lab writeup • Ask them to write the code again • Give them hints and help them figure out what has gone wrong. Guide them to writing the right code

6. You found 5 programs that were plagiarized. What do you do? • Punish the students according to the penalty guidelines you set at the first class • Inform the instructor and let him/her take care of this incident • Give warnings to students and tell them you will punish them if they plagiarize again • Pretend you do not know this has happened to avoid trouble

7. You find that you were not prepared for one of the questions the students asked you. What do you do? • Defer the explanation to a later time and follow up after you have researched the question • Apologize for your inexperience or lack of expertise • Tell the student you don't know the answer and they need to ask the instructor • Drag on about an irrelevant subject, hoping the student will forget the question they asked

8. Your instructor asks you to proctor a quiz. During the quiz, you see a few students cheat. What do you do first? • Inform the students that they will get a zero for the quiz. If they protest, the instructor will file a formal cheating case • Stop them immediately without stopping the quiz. Add remarks on their papers that will alert your instructor when he/she grades the quiz • Stop them immediately without disturbing others. Collect their papers , inform your instructor as soon as possible and let him/her deal with the case • Stop the quiz immediately and ask permission of your instructor to reschedule the quiz.

9. In your lab, you are using the overhead projector. Suddenly the bulb blows out. What do you do? • Use another overhead projector • Phone the Student Computing Services immediately • Write on the whiteboard • Dismiss the class

10. While leading a discussion of a topic covered in the last lecture by the instructor, students are exceptionally quiet, no response. What do you do? • Put students in small groups and ask them to work on some questions about the topic • Give a summary of the previous lecture and check for understanding with questions • Somehow "force" the students to answer your questions • Dismiss the group early and report to the instructor

11. Many students complain to you about the poor teaching performance of the instructor. What do you do? • Tell the students you agree with their opinion • Tell the instructor directly that the students complain about his/her teaching performance • Tell the instructor that the students have great difficulties in understanding his/her lecture and suggest ways to help students learn • Tell the students that you will cover some of the lecture contents in lab

12. A student answers your question about a lab problem but the response is far from a correct one. What do you do? • Rephrase the question to provide further hints for thinking or point out what is missing in the answer • Make a joke about the student's answer • Ask other students to comment about his/her answer • Answer the question yourself

13. A student comes to the front of the room and turns in his test paper. He says "I'm dying to know the answer to #23! Please tell me!" What do you do? • Tell him the answer • Tell him that you can't discuss answers until all the students have taken the test and some makeups will be tomorrow • Tell him the wrong answer • Don't tell him the answer because you are not supposed to talk to students during the test

14. The last assignment is due one week before the final exam. It is tempting not to grade them until after the exam. What do you do? • Grade them after the exam, as long as it is before the deadline the final grades have to be turned in • Grade them at least roughly as soon as you get them in • Grade them in time to return them to the students before the final exam • Only grade them if they will make a difference to the student's final grade

15. A student gets a cell phone call during a lab test and says she has to leave right NOW. What do you do? • Tell her to submit what she has up until this point • Record the fact that she used her cell phone, which is forbidden during tests and is CHEATING • Tell her if she wants to take the test again, it will be a RETAKE with a stiff penalty • Tell her she can do a makeup later

16. A student protests that he DID take that lab test. What do you do? • Check the attendance sheet for that test • Check the submit directory for that section • Check the submit directory for all sections • Check the submission log file • Tell your instructor about the problem and what you have checked