Teaching Links 

As was said before, "teaching" involves many skills and it takes lots of time and effort to master them.  Nobody should expect to walk into their first TA assignment and expect to dazzle their students to the point they all decide to switch majors.  The truth is that few of us enter grad school with any teaching experience.  Standing in front of 30 students who seem to be expecting you to have all of the answers can be intimidating. 
 

      
  There are many skills that all TAs (no matter what their department) can use.  Many of the links here reflect that as they may be aimed at a very wide audience.  Similarly, some suggestions may not be suited for your physics section.  That's okay; it's up to you to decide what you think is appropriate. Think about what your students need to help them learn (asking them is a great way to find this out) and consider what your strengths and weaknesses are.  The one suggestion I would make would be that you consider pushing yourself; take risks.  Try something new every now & then- you may be surprised what your students like. 

If you'd like to talk to Jeff (or somebody else at the IRC) to get more ideas, don't hesitate to email or call (x5805).

          
       
         
   
Instructional Resource Center: The place to get pedagogical information at UCI. 

Berkeley Compendium: a collection of practical teaching advice for all disciplines. 

The Teaching Resources Guide: Many schools have reference materials for their TAs, but none are as complete as UCI’s. 

LDP at UCI: The Lecture Demonstration Program is now on-line thanks to Ferdi and John Rosendahl.  Take a look here for demos that they have in stock.  With minimal begging, grad students can barrow some of the equipment. 

Teaching Ideas at Oregon : a collection of essays and links on many classroom topics (group learning, IT, service learning, etc.)

World Lecture Hall: a nice place to stop by if you're planning out your course web site as they have links to many example sites.

Physics Sciences Resource Center: a general collection of links related to physics teaching.
 
 

      
 
tac@sun1.ps.uci.edu