The First TA Evaluation

As an undergraduate student myself, I don't tend to fill course evaluations for TAs [1] beyond the "multiple choice" part. For TAs in lectures, I hardly ever see them, and so there is nothing to say; most of the time there is no evaluation component for them, anyway. For TAs in labs, well, most of them are fine, and therefore rather unremarkable. I only give written comments for exceptional TA-ing, be it exceptionally good or exceptionally bad.

Last term, I was on the other side of the desk (so to speak), and having just recently received my own TA evaluation has left me with rather mixed feelings. Next time I have a TA, maybe I should fill out the evaluations fully...

My sample size is somewhat small - slightly over 10. The variance (which I didn't bother to calculate) is, by inspection, very large; I somehow managed to get every rank on the scale (yay?).

Anyway, I guess I'll talk about the negative aspects first. There were essentially two complaints: one is that I don't explain things clearly, the other is that I don't mark fairly.

The first, I chalk to the fact that I'm not supposed to give answers away; what I need are more, um, blatant hints that don't give the answer outright. It's true that I tend to talk too fast, though...need to work on that [2]. Also, giving out too much tangential information can be bad. The course draws on examples from many areas; unfortunately there's little explanation/backstory given for any of the examples. I (mistakenly) thought that giving a bit more context will help people understand the problem. Of course, I should've known that they just want to know how to solve the problem.

The second can be a "I mark too hard". Or it might not. I'm not sure whether my natural inclination is to mark generously or harshly; obviously opinions differ on that one. The thing is - I don't really know my students; there's no reason for me to mark in a biased way [3]! Answers only need to satisfy three requirements: they need to be correct, complete, and understandable [4]. Partial credit is given where it's due (unless the answer fails the third criterion). It didn't help that when students complain my professor usually sides with the student. Eh. *Shrugs*

The good parts are pretty trivial ("approachable", "enthusiastic", "insert fluff word here") so I'll ignore them. Except one - several students remarked that I'm very knowledgeable about the tools the course used. The funny thing is that I've never taken the course before - TA-ing this course is my first formal exposure to those tools, too. In that respect, the course was useful to me - I essentially took the course without wasting precious academic credits (or tuition funds).

I'm not sure whether I want to TA the course again, though. Sure, they say that you learn something new each time you teach, but some of the software is evil and I don't really want to see them again.

[1] [5] Faculty's different. I usually write something on those, unless there's really nothing to say.
[2] Most people I interact with on a daily basis understand what I'm saying the first time, so it's very unnatural for me to slow down.
[3a] In the interest of full disclosure - I did actually know one of my students personally. It turns out that her work is good enough that it doesn't matter whether I'm biased or not, but I'd like to think that I marked fairly anyway.
[3b] As one of the grad students in my current lab says - "We don't care whether the students get a good mark or not; all we care about is whether they do their work safely, without blowing anything up."
[4] Some people write essays when one line will suffice. These essays consist of what looks like arbitrary words in a dictionary - I can understand the individual words, but that's about it. I don't care that they are first-years, writing intelligibly IS a requirement even (especially) in math/science!
[5] Using numbers because the asterisks are getting a bit unwieldy. I have alot of side remarks today!