Being a TA at UCR

1. Being a TA at UCR • Outline • In this brief talk, we will see • Why doing a good job as a TA is important • Some tricks for communicating clearly Eamonn Keogh

2. The Basic Idea • TAs are the face of the CS Department • Critical for undergraduate education • You need to take it seriously • Teaching can be a lot of fun • Good practice for public speaking

3. How can you achieve this? • You need the right attitude • Pride, professionalism • You need to • Prepare • Communicate • Support each other

4. Having the right mentality • You are being paid by the taxpayer • TAs and Instructors are on the same team • Assume the role with pride: • You are the Dpt, you are the course, you are the lab • Communicate and speak up • Follow the decisions made by the team • Express concerns and objections politely • Be cooperative and proactive • Be a team player • Help other TAs

6. Being interactive • Feel your class and adapt • Students are afraid to ask or answer • Encourage them! • Best trick: long pauses work well • Try waiting for 3 seconds • Use questions: • Help you see if they follow. • Answer every question: • Even if to only promise to follow up later • But, take irrelevant material offline • Admit when you don’t know

7. Preparation • Think about your audience, goal, context. • Develop your plan (slides, notes, speech) • Target to the needs of your audience. • Rehearse, prepare mentally • Make sure you know what you are talking about. • Have a few skeleton points in front of you. • Have fully worked out difficult parts • Useful tip • Say what you plan to say • Say it • Say what you have said

8. Oral communication • Speak in a way that feels natural but • Loud, and slow. • Speak as in a one-on-one conversation. • Make eye contact: a few is enough • Mind your body language: • Don’t pace up and down nervously • Don’t fidget with your hands • Videotape?

9. Written communication • Write legibly, don’t rush • Use large enough letters! • Try to be concise and clear • Don’t keep your back to the class • What you write should capture the lesson: • Main important points • In a stand alone fashion, is possible

10. Conclusion • A TA represents the Dpt and UCR: • Be professional • Do your job well • It can be very satisfying

11. You are evaluated by the students • The students must evaluate you. • At a minimum, two people at grad division, plus Amy Ricks will read your evaluations. • If you a very good.. there is an Award. • If you are very bad • You can be forced to take remedial classes • You can be denied employment (by either grad division or Amy) • Your advisor can be informed.

12. Least liked TA attributes • Our TA speaks too softly (Number 1 problem) • My TA is not fair • Vague definition of fairness though • My TA is not helpful, s/he does not know… • My TA is arrogant and condescending. • Our TA is never in his/her scheduled office hours. • My TA favors certain students.

13. Cheating • Most of the anti-cheating responsibility lies with the prof

14. Homework for Next Time • Prepare a 8 minute talk on anything • (use powerpoint, or whiteboard) • Each person will give their talk • Afterwards, each person will give two things they liked, and two areas of improvement.

15. Tips for Giving a Good Talk Dr Eamonn Keogh Computer Science & Engineering DepartmentUniversity of California - RiversideRiverside,CA 92521eamonn@cs.ucr.edu Oct 12th 2015 Modified from the notes of Edward R. Tufte, Craig S. Kaplan, Eamonn Keogh and others

16. Outline • In this talk I will give advice on giving talks • General advice (Logistics) • Organization • Making clear overheads • Avoiding common pitfalls • Conclusion • I will invite your questions and comments

17. General Advice • Show up early. You may have a chance to head off some technical or ergonomic problem • Have a backup plan. Bring a laptop, but also bring a USB stick, and put the talk online,… Bring a PPT file and a PDF file.. • Check out the room ahead of time. Before your talk, check out the room, and make sure it has everything you need. • Invest in a laser pointer. They are inexpensive, and are extremely useful. • Rehearse timing. This is the most common sin

18. Slides I • Use the biggest fonts realistically possible. Small fonts are hardtoread • Use highlycontrastingcolors. • Avoid busy backgrounds. Too much in the background makes the text hard to read. • Avoid using red text. Red text is often hard to read.

19. Slides II • AVOID ALL CAPS! All caps look like you're shouting. • Include a good combination of words, pictures, and graphics. A variety keeps the presentation interesting.

20. Slides III • Be terse • The sales forecasts show an increase on the horizon. • Sales heading up • Use bullets or numbered items appropriately • Test your slides a few days before your talk • Outline of our method • Design • Implementation • Testing • Goals • Ease of use • Reusability • Reliability

21. Slides IIII • Begin with an introduction slide (Who you are, why you are giving a talk, the title of the talk) • Next, give an outline (“roadmap”). For such a short talk, you might want to combine this with the above • State your point (one simple slide) • Demonstrate your point (a few slides) • Review your point (one simple slide) • End with a slide that reviews the entire talk • We introduced the TSP problem • We explained why it is an important problem • We explained why it is a hard problem • We introduced a new heuristic to solve TSP • We empirically demonstrated the utility of our approach

22. Slides V • At all costs, avoid moving back and forth through your slides!

23. Slides VI • Important Note • We tend to optimize our figures for the LCD monitor in our office. • However, projectors often have different contrasts and resolutions....

24. Annoying Personal Habits(This means you) • Playing with jewelry • Licking and/or biting your lips • Constantly adjusting your glasses • Popping the top of a pen • Playing with facial hair (men) • Playing with/twirling your hair (women) • Jingling change in your pocket • Leaning against anything for support • Fillers: “ah”, “um”, and “and” • Starting every sentence with the same word • Sticky floor syndrome • Avoiding eye contact • Lack of enthusiasm

25. Handling Questions • Don’t be defensive • Acknowledge a good point • Defer unrelated questions for the end • If you don’t know, admit it • Accept gracefully a mistake • “You may be right, I will need to check though” • Most people will be on your side, but be prepared to handle adversity

26. Conclusions • I have given some hints on presenting, including • General advice (Logistics) • Organization • Making clear overheads • Avoiding common pitfalls Questions?