consultation

The prof. I'm assisting has finally (probably after seeing the results of the mid-term) acknowledged that his class is not succeeding. Yesterday only 20 (out of about 30) students showed up, and after the break only 12 returned to class. He emailed me today to tell me that he has requested a consultation from the education department.

There are a lot of things missing from the class, but I'd say that one of the main things is facilitation of interest. He assumes that the people are already interested in the class; I know that it's a requirement that they be there (as are all classes that are towards one's coursework). The trick is to create interest in the class where there initially was none. Instead the opposite is happening - students are becoming apathetic.

I wonder how he has been successful with this teaching style in the past? This isn't his first time teaching...is our university culture so different that it's not working here? Or has he been treating all of his classes this way and just not listening to the feedback of the students/TAs (though I think I may be the first).

chores

This semester's TA assignment has been frustrating beyond all belief. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing all of the important professorial duties outside of the classroom.

For instance, Professor decided to have the mid-term later than most other classes. Of course the students were happy to be able to put it off, but now he and I are in a crunch to get them all "graded" (I'm using this term in the loosest possible manner) in time to recommend that any failing students either get to work or withdraw.

I just sent him an email about this because I'm sure that he has no idea about the looming deadline. I also have a sneaking suspicion that he's going to ask me to notify the students who are in trouble, which I don't believe is appropriate.

Before the mid-term he told students that they only had to try as hard on it as they think they should. He said that if they feel like they've been doing too much work all semester than they probably have been and that they didn't have to take the mid-term so seriously in that case. For those that have been slacking off, the mid-term is their shot to keep their grade passable. I don't know how, as the one reading these, to grade feelings. The majority of the mid-terms are embarrassingly assembled, with no indication to me that they understand the concepts.

I think that if this is how his grading system works, he should try to operate within it himself. What will happen, though, is that everyone will get an A.

Also, he wants to revise the syllabus, which I think is pretty much not allowed. After all the syllabus is the contract between the professor and the student - changing the expectations midway through is not fair.

literature review

for one of my classes (the one I haven't complained about), I've been researching information that will probably become a part of my thesis proposal when I write that next spring.

It's more difficult than I expected to keep the two projects separate right now - I feel torn because I have to do the literature review for my potential thesis topic (so I can be sure that my idea is even viable), but it's cutting into my time doing the literature review for my other paper (which will also directly bear on my proposal).

I thought that having a similar topic would help keep things simple, but it's just jumbling all my ideas up into a big knot.