New TA- Teaching Tutorials. Advise pls!

[Username_92]

This is my first year of graduate school (masters in psychology) and I was assigned to a course that requires teaching tutorials every week. I took a prep course from my university that covered the basics- how to plan and deliver a lecture, marking etc., but I am still nervous (I haven't had much experience with public speaking let alone teaching a class). I also look very young, and I am concerned that students won't take me seriously. Does anyone have any advice? For example, how do you get everyone to shush so you can start, or deal with students that talk amongst themselves? Thank you!

Edited September 13, 2015 by Username_92

[fuzzylogician]

It depends on the situation. For the looking young problem, the best solution I know is to dress the part. Wear slacks and a nice button-down shirt, not jeans and a T-shirt, to set yourself apart from your students. Keep in mind that students will just assume that the person at the front of the room has authority and knows what they're talking about, even if you don't feel particularly authoritative. 

Re: anxiety, that's really something that improves with time, as you do it more. I don't really know of a good way to "make it go away" other than just repeated exposure. If it's any help, I distinctly remember as a first-year undergrad getting nervous and sweaty from the thought of raising my hand in recitation (which I didn't, for several years after that). Now I teach in front of large auditoriums and give talks without worrying about it too much. What I did was recognize that if I wanted to be an academic then teaching and presentations were inevitable, and I began to seek out opportunities to present, preferably in low-key environments such as friendly reading groups and small workshops. With time you get used to it and worry less. 

Re: getting people to shut up, it's useful to create a sudden noise to get everyone's attention. I am not a fan of the "wait until everyone quiets down" strategy because that way you relinquish control to the audience and that can go wrong. As for what to do if a few people are talking while you speak, it kind of depends. Sometimes you just ignore it, or you try and catch their gaze to make it clear that you hear them. If you can, you can walk over and stand near them, which also usually gets the point across. Or you make a general remark about how easily sound carries from the back of the class to the front, or you single those people out and ask them to stop. I am for the non-verbal methods as much as possible, where you don't break your stride and still try and get your point across, so as much as possible not letting them disrupt the rest of the class. It's also good not to expect total silence for the entire lecture, because that's just hard for people. If you integrate small group assignments where they can move around a bit and talk, that helps them sit quietly for the parts where you want to talk and for them to just listen.

You learn these things with time, and it might not be perfect from the get-go. That's normal. Remember that the students don't know what you had planned and are not in your head, so if you don't announce you made a mistake, they will probably just assume you meant to do or say whatever you did or said. Move on and don't apologize or stop. If you come in with what looks like a clear lesson plan, people really do just assume that the authority figure up front did it all on purpose. If you identify a repeating issue, then ask more experienced teachers how to deal with it. 

[rising_star]

Get some books on teaching. The classics are McKeachie's Teaching Tips and then maybe Barkley's Student Engagement Techniques or other titles by her. There are also some great books on surviving your first semester/year of teaching, though I can't think of any titles offhand. Check your university's library catalog and I'm sure you'll find some either in hard copy or as e-books. 

As for when students are talking, how I handle it depends on a variety of factors like who the students are, if they're repeat offenders or not, and what's happening in the class at the time. For example, if a group of students is noisily talking and it prevents me from hearing a question or comment from someone else, I'll ask the student making the comment to repeat themselves and, while looking at the chatty group, say something like "I couldn't hear you over all the other people talking, so can you repeat that for all of us?" That both calls out the offenders and refocuses everyone's attention on the question being asked. 

[TakeruK]

In the same vein as fuzzy's suggestion of making a noise at the start to get people's attention, I think it's important to take some action that makes it clear that your class is going to begin. For example, I don't like just standing at the front of the class while students trickle in because then when I start, it's not super clear that class has begun. So, I usually sit at the front of the room or stand against a side wall or maybe stand at the back of the room near the door and greet each student (my tutorials are usually like 10-20 students). Then, when I want class to begin, usually getting up / walking over to the center of the room and greeting everyone loudly is enough of a signal to get people to pay attention. If it's a really big class, then a sudden noise can help too. If you don't want it to sound "unnatural", a good loud noise in some classrooms is pulling the whiteboards/blackboards up and down. You can even have something written on one of the boards beforehand (e.g. the topic for the day), then pull a board over top of it, and when you want to begin, push the top board up. It will make a noise and everyone will look up to see both you and the topic you are going to talk about.

I agree with fuzzy about "waiting until everyone quiets down" relinquishing control. But this can be still effective in small classes (~10 or so people). If everyone is already facing the front, usually if you get up and look at everyone in the eye, they will look back to you and you can start. Like fuzzy also said, they don't know what is going on in your head, so you can always try this and if it doesn't work in 10 seconds or so, you can use one of the other strategies and the class would have no idea you tried the "wait until quiet down" method  

[Username_92]

Thank you everyone!! I really appreciate it!