Winter QUARTER 2018 — Information and Computer Science — UC Irvine
Advanced Teaching Assistant Seminar — ICS 398B
COURSE SCHEDULE AND INFORMATION
Quick links: Assignments E-mail archive Piazza Q&A References/Resources UCI's Center for Engaged Instruction
Instructor: David G. Kay, 5056 Donald Bren Hall. Stop by any time, or send electronic mail to "kay".
Meeting time and place: Wednesdays, 9:00 to 11:50, in a room to be arranged.
Course goals: In this course we will cover teaching computer science and related disciplines at the college level, from the instructor's perspective. This perspective is useful even for students, as consumers of instruction, but we presume that participants in this course have some (perhaps tentative) plans to teach computing/math/engineering, whether through University Extension, Summer Sessions, or their own academic job. We will look at (and in most cases practice) designing and running one's own course, designing assignments and exams, setting grades, preparing teaching portfolios (records of your teaching for use in job applications and promotion cases), making curricular decisions, and other related issues.
Course requirements: This seminar is not designed to impose a large time burden on the participants beyond the class meetings themselves. Grading is satisfactory/unsatisfactory or pass/not-pass. But it is important that you attend the class meetings, participate in the discussions, and prepare for the various activities, which will include some readings and a variety of informal presentations leading towards your own complete design of a course. You should expect that in this course, as a seminar, the majority of the learning will take place in the class meetings. We know that as advanced graduate students, you may have travel obligations; we'll try to work around them, but it will be difficult if you anticipate missing more than two class meetings during the quarter. 3
Very approximate course schedule:
Week 1 |
January 10 |
Introductions and overview; planning a course |
Week 2 |
January 17 | Clarifying curricular and pedagogical goals |
Week 3 |
January 24 | Course design |
Week 4 |
January 31 | Assignment design |
Week 5 |
February 7 | Grading, plagiarism, managing graders |
Week 6 |
February 14 | Exam design, evaluation alternatives |
Week 7 |
February 21 | — No class meeting — |
Week 8 |
February 28 |
Setting final grades |
Week 9 |
March 7 | Curricular issues, teaching philosophies, teaching jobs |
Week 10 |
March 14 | Epilogue |