14 Apr
2005
14 Apr
'05
3:43 p.m.
In order to gain an idea of resources I may have
available to me
(universities from which to choose my sample), I would like to know:
what university or college you are representing, and what your main area
of interest regarding TAs is. I would also be interested to know if you
would be willing to be a liason between your university and myself,
distributing and collecting surveys in the fall.
hi Christine, I am Eric Hsu at San Francisco State University. I
haven't posted much, more due to being overloaded rather than
indifference. We have a MA program with a healthy batch of about 25
graduate instructors teaching remedial algebra. I am interested in
what factors influence their teaching practice. In particular, I'm
interested in seeing to what extent their teaching community affects
them (peers, veterans, supervisors etc.) and also the effect of their
intended career.
I am closing in on a dissertation question which
involves
university characteristics (Carnegie classification, availability of faculty
training, TA teaching awards offered, etc.), and their correlation to
effective TAs. This study would involve survey data, to be collected
this fall (2005) from a variety of university math departments.
This seems like a very important question and I'm glad you are
tackling it. One common sticking point of this sort of project is how
to assess the 'effectiveness' of the TAs, especially in a cross-site
way. I hope you'll let us know what you find...
best wishes, Eric
--
Eric Hsu, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
San Francisco State University
erichsu(a)math.sfsu.edu
http://math.sfsu.edu/hsu