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ACE CA Support Session: Week 1 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

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ACE CA Support Session: Week 1 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

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What we discussed:
Things we wish we knew as first time ACE CAs:

Use class/section archives:

https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs109/cs109.1182/

Beginning of the quarter is typically the busiest, stay the course! Things become more rhythmic after the first 3 weeks and also after enrollment

Software to send out permission numbers: YAMM (Yet Another Mail Merge) - check out the ACE CA Guide that Sonja wrote! -- YAS thank you both!

Rely on one another and your community! Colleagues are filled with wisdom and experiential knowledge

Manage priorities, you can’t do it all at all times

Ask for help! Reach out to your core teaching team, ask to be added to the canvas page, ask for class materials, due dates, past exams etc.

One on one contact with students is extremely important, it is helpful to reach out one on one to get response

What we hope to do next time: Try something new amongst our peers! Idea Lab coming soon!

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What did we do?
Talked about pandemic keepsakes, some innovative teaching techniques should stay!

Option to record live lectures

Collaboration and learning with others in the virtual classroom

Virtual drop-in office hours and spaces to connect with faculty staff in a comfortable way

The power of asynchronous offerings and classes

Demonstration of increased compassion and accommodations, a tonal shift, we are here to learn so lets make it accessible

Reassessing everything from assessments, and engagement, reducing, stress

Testing accommodations and different modalities of testing

Increase of reach and impact, speakers from all over the world

Getting feedback in realtime and different tools to make classroom experience more continuous

THEN, it was Willie's Lab time!

Key Takeaways:

Carl Weiman - https://aps.org/publications/apsnews/202010/backpage.cfm

Phet: Instructional simulations - https://phet.colorado.edu/

“There are no lonely vertices”

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What is an Idea Lab anyway?
Idea Lab: An Idea(s) Lab is an intensive, interactive and free-thinking environment, where a diverse group of participants from a range of disciplines and backgrounds gets together to immerse themselves in collaborative thinking processes in order to construct innovative approaches to teaching, solution design and anything else for that matter!

What did we create?
OUR IDEAS BOOM :

1. Present incorrect solution/walkthrough for students to identify mistakes made.

2. Create a worksheet for students to tackle problems independently.

3. Ask them to lead a small presentation on a topic - become the teacher

4. Showcase proofs as a puzzle-solving, interactive so students learn all the assumptions and know where to apply the concepts

5. Give them physical intuition to understand the relevance of concepts

6. “Pacer”-like working session, where we start simple and give students feedback

students who do well on early problems will double back and help students who are still working on early problems

7. Present students with an error, have them enumerate their thought process; then do a “debugging methods” brainstorm and talk about thought process

8. Individualized feedback/choose-your-own adventure (depending on your answers)

9. Have student present their strategies/solutions to section exercises to help cement their understanding and provide a student perspective to their problem solving

10. Stimulate student-to-student teaching / learning

11. Introducing concept reviews before diving into specific practice problems

Something to consider: Are there things, methods, or aspects of your section that you can improve?

1. How will you know it has improved?

2. Time management

3. Incentivize learning, try and get students to turn their camera on and provide a safe space to ask questions

4. Interaction and student engagement (maybe put in more group activities)

5. Keeping track of actual class performance in

6. Breakout rooms management

Creating a comfortable space such that students feel more comfortable working together

7. A method to help find ways to improve: scheduling 2 required 1:1’s a quarter to get direct feedback

3. How can we make it a practice to try new things in the classroom environment?

Don’t try everything at once

Try a new thing every week

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Center for Teaching and Learning taught us all about how to honor and also support a spectrum of understanding and midterm prep needs

Here are some points we discussed: (Complete notes here)

What if I don’t know what is going to be on the exam?

Talking to teaching team and also past CAs

How much of a regular session should a review session be?

Are multiple choice questions an effective learning tool?

Know and practice the format of the test! The cognitive work they are doing can be alleviated by doing this practice

Are recordings of review sessions very valuable?

How much should the practice problems really reflect what you think will be on the test?

There’s a lot to cover and very little time. How to best use time?

What is the best way to lead review sessions so students who are taking it asynchronously can still find it helpful?

How to manage time in terms of how much material review vs how many practice problem

How do we use review as a tool throughout the quarter?

Different types of practice:

Simple practice

Extra practice

Cumulative practice

Elida: What if I don’t know what’s going to be on the exam?

Make every effort to contact previous CAs, TAs, or the instructor for the course to learn more about the exam. If you aren’t able to locate a version of the exam then you can infer based on the learning objective, or main topic, from each unit covered so far.

More Questions:

Georgia: How much of a regular session should a review session be? Garrick: What teaching strategies are most valuable for review sessions? And Andrea: How to manage time in terms of how much material review vs. how many practice problems?

Review sessions should, by definition, not cover new material and definitely be guided by student questions and interests. There is a helpful page on the Yale CTL website about different ways to structure a review session. It’s great if students get some practice as well as feedback on their process, as well as being able to watch demonstrations.

Carlos: Are multiple choice questions an effective learning tool?

They can be, yes. They’re a little tricky to write well, however. Here is a post from Tomorrow’s Professor about how to write effective multiple choice items. Whether or not you decide to go with multiple choice questions, make sure students are getting some feedback on their practice problems so that they know what to work on to improve.

Andrew: Are recordings of review sessions very valuable? + Avery: How to create an effective asynchronous review session:

A video of step-by-step explanation of problems can be helpful, especially if it’s coupled with a review problem set so students can work alongside watching the video. You might also consider a Slack channel, time zone buddies, and/or study groups so students can work through problems together when doing asynchronous review.

Sonja: How much should the practice problems really reflect what you think will be on the test?

Consider changing the values of a problem, so that students are learning the process, set-up, and/or underlying skills. I think it’s a sign of good preparation if the test problems look familiar (in terms of the underlying concepts) to students when they encounter an exam.

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Week 7: Student Testing in our Idea Lab 

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Week 7: Student Testing in our Idea Lab 

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We jumped back into curriculum design!
- Empathize
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test

MORE OF OUR IDEAS, BOOM .

How and what did we ideate?

1) Review the various types of student testing options (1-3 minutes)

Feedback Interview: show your new design prototype to a stakeholder and interview them about how usable, useful, and engaging it is.

Over-the-shoulder observation: give them the prototype and watch as they try to use it. Note down breakdowns confusions, and payoffs. You can possibly give them a persona card to help them understand what POV they are using it from.

Survey instruments: have the tester fill out a short survey, usually with a scale responses of 1-7 (levels of agreement). The questions can draw from surveys around Usability, Design for Dignity, and Procedural Justice.

Comprehension Testing: have people use the design prototype, and then after they are done, give them a quiz to measure how much of the important content they have understood and retained.

Idea book: make concept posters or other high-level presentations of your various ideas or features. Put them in a single book, like a catalog. Have the testers look

2)  In your group create an example or prepare an explanation of your activity or what we would call in this experiment “laboratory” (3-5 minutes)

3) Plan to use the bulk of the time with our student testers for Q&A. Even if your prototype is in a preliminary phase, that is okay! Leverage this opportunity speaking with potential future students/past ACE students to receive student feedback and input. Use 10 minutes to draft questions to ask of our student testers to find out what ways to make your prototype better and in alignment if your goals within the section!

4) (If there’s time) Come back together as one big group and quickly share out

5) (If there’s not time for a big group to share out) at 12:30 PM PDT: We will go directly into student testing! A chance to bring our ideas to life!

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We wrote notes to future CAs and also to ourselves that you can find here!
We celebrated our graduating CA's, offloaded materials onto our CA drive and we promised to stay in touch! No matter how far you go, you'll always have a place in the ACE family!!!

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Almost there everyone <3

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All of our amazing CA's for teaching during a pandemic! you're dedication and commitment is inspiring! Will miss you lots-Lourdes

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Thanks to Betty, Lourdes, and Willie and all the CAs! I have learnt a lot from you and hope to keep on practicing my teaching over the next year with your tips and guidance.
I loved working with my students as well and getting good and constructive feedback from them made me grateful that I have a job where I can impact someone's love for STEM!

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Garrick, it's been so fantastic working with you these past five quarters. I've loved that we've gotten to consult with each other as we developed our ACE curricula. You're so creative (throwback to CS198B and using improv), so caring about the students, and such a joy to work with! Thank you for teaching me how to make sunny side up eggs and inspiring me to get creative with teaching!! And thanks for making the Careers Panel take flight :)

-Sonja

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It's been a blast pairing up and taking on the 106's with you. I'm always in awe of your commitment to teaching and to improving your techniques; it's inspiring for me. Also thankful for your idea of the Careers Panel!
-Garrick

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for everything you do for the ACE CAs. It's been amazing to be part of the ACE program!!

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It's been really great getting to work with you all :)

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Thanks for giving us this place to connect as peers :)

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Thank YOU all for teaching me so much and inspiring me to be a better educator! I will do my best to pass on the learnings! Best of luck to you all, wherever you all go next, i know you will make what it is better!!! And so long as you know how to deconstruct a decision tree, you are set!

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I couldn't have asked for a better co-conspirator and friend. Your joy and care is infectious and I have learned a lot from you! Thank you for all of your work with ACE since mid-Autumn. Lourdes

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I feel like I have become much better at communicating technical information because of ACE. I really appreciate everything you do for this program and for underrepresented students in STEM generally.

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Thank you for a wonderful quarter!! I've learned lots from you all, and am grateful for the warm community we built this quarter! Cheers to a wonderful and restful summer!

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You all are amazing and have been models to the rest of us for so long. Thank you for your commitment to the students!

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Thanks you so much for all your help throughout these two quarters and for always answering my math questions. It's been incredibly helpful! I'm really grateful to have you as part of the ACE family!

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I keep getting rave reviews from former students — just wanted to say, you're crushing it!! Also, thank you for teaching me about overflow in Pokemon :D

-Sonja

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I don't know what I did to get so lucky to have been able to work alongside you the past 3 years. You've brought so much value and care to your work. Thank you, Lourdes

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You've done soo much for this program, thank you for really giving it your all and making such a great experience for us CAs!
-Sonja

It's been so great working with you this year!! I am so glad you joined the team!
-Willie

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Thank you!

Lourdes