Word: tfs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...only a part of teaching responsibilities. The rest of teaching and learning at Harvard is a confused muddle--study groups, casual conversation and diligent self-teachers form the Harvard education. Somewhere in the classroom, however, after the lecture and before the dinner tables, we find the teaching fellows, our TFs...
This equivocation, it turns out, covered up (or perhaps revealed) a much bigger one: TFs exist in almost every course offered to us. They grade our papers and tests, lead our sections and learn our names. Their names, however, are not listed in the FAS course catalogue. This omission, to my mind, compromises both the credit owed to them and their responsibility to the course. Besides that, it leaves undergraduates in the dark about the courses we must choose to take...
...would imagine that some staffing decisions come late, and the FAS course catalogue has practical, operational limits. Maybe some TFs are so shy, noble or ashamed that they don't want their names listed. I hope many professors are not too proud to allow their inclusion, but maybe there is an "industry standard" about this sort of thing. None of these concerns rival the notions of academic honesty we live by, and in this case, take for granted...
...find similar fraudulence in a list of courses which, while purporting to account of this institution's academic offerings, omits the larger part of their known participants and benefactors. As much as teaching is a crucial part of scholarship, TFs play a crucial part in the design of any course where they exist. Even if they do not choose the readings, they coach us in them. If they don't write the lecture, they answer for it. They are often the student's only responsive, personal contact with the course material. They are more than assistants...
...larger courses, sections and the TFs that go with them exist as a check on classroom overcrowding. While a student might not ever be able to pick that favorite TF, as sectioning is often randomized, listing the TFs for these courses would at least give students an idea of a course's personnel structure. Presently, the course listing for Social Analysis 10, the largest course at Harvard with dozens of TFs, is indistinguishable, content aside, from a course on Livy's history of Rome, where ten undergraduates meet with a full professor...