Word: section
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that I have had about five wonderful teaching fellows: four graduate students and one professor who inspired me to do all the reading and come to sections prepared and excited. They were organized, compassionate, fair and firm. They were not nervous or apologetic. They began learning our names at the first section. In short, they were teachers, and not merely babysitters. Unfortunately, they were the exceptions...
...solution to a poor TF is to change sections--that is, if you realize early enough what you are getting into. But this is often harder than it seems. Switching from one section to another at Harvard is like playing poker. You have to know how to bluff (fabricate a conflict to escape a section with a dismal teaching fellow); you do not know whether trading in your cards (switching sections) will net you a better hand (TF); and you have to know when to walk away and give up the fight (resign yourself to the fact that there...
What the University should do is require all of its professors to teach an undergraduate section for every lecture class. It should encourage seniors to participate in graduate sections with the professor. It should implement a system so that teaching fellows for courses are assigned thoughtfully--say, all first-year TFs should teach survey courses. And it should base TF hiring on CUE Guide ratings...
Although College guidelines limit average section size to 20 students, some professors and teaching fellows are concerned that sections in their classes are too large...
Yesterday, after telling his class that sections were too large for effective discussions, the chair of the English department took half of the 22 students in a section of his course, English 150: "English Romantic Poetry," into another classroom and taught them himself, while the teaching fellow taught the remaining 11 students...