Rebecca J. Acosta
Electronic Teaching Portfolio



General Teaching Philosophy and Methods:
Statement of Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Experience:  Descriptions, Examples, Evaluations
The following is a list of classes for which I've been a Teaching Assistant (a.k.a. Graduate Student Instructor):
As my evaluations show, my teaching abilities have improved greatly since my first term as a TA.  This is in spite of the fact that I've never been a TA for the same course for the same professor more than once, and so have not had the benefit of practicing the exact same material every quarter (though there has been much overlap across classes).  I've chosen to teach a wide variety of courses in order to broaden my experience.  I am confident I can now teach any of the following classes myself as a professor.

Spring 2001:  Econ 11, Intermediate Microeconomics

Students for this class were most concerned about how to work through homework problems and practice problems for the exams.  The professor described concepts in lecture, so discussion sections were mostly devoted to problem solving.
Winter 2001:  Econ 101, Advanced Microeconomics
I was head TA for this class.  The professor gave very general descriptions of the theory.  He tended to focus on real-world examples of the concepts discussed.  In my sections, I explained the concepts brought up in lecture in more detail and in a more graphical way.  Since I went into a lot of detail in the sections, I also posted what I covered each week on the web.  The homeworks and exams had little math, so I only included mathematical background when students asked questions about it.

I taught one lecture near the beginning of the quarter when the professor was out of town.  The student response was good, and attendance in my two sections increased to the point where there was standing room only.  The professor even sent me an e-mail commenting on it.

There were a few communication problems with the professor this quarter, partly due to my scheduling clashing with his so that it was hard to meet to discuss the class.  There was some uncertainty about what the professor expected from the homework assignments and I was unable to discuss it with him right away, so was unable to help the students in as timely a manner as I would've liked.  There were also a few last minute changes to the syllabus that the professor didn't warn the TAs about, causing some confusion.  I believe these communication problems are the reason my mean evaluations are lower for this quarter than in other recent quarters.  When I am a professor, I will meet with my TAs (or at least the head TA) at least once a week to make sure they know what is planned for the week and what I expect from homeworks and exams.

Fall 2000:  Econ 104, Managerial Economics
This lectures for this class were very straight forward.  The professor gave some practice problems, but the students requested more problems to work through.  So for my TA sections, I made up problems similar to the practice problems handed out by the professor and worked through them step by step with the appropriate graphs.  I tried to make sure the students understood the theoretical concepts underlying each problem.  In one of the first discussion sections, I made a mathematical error on the board and promised the students I would write up the correct solution to the problem and everything else we talked about and post these notes on the web.  The students told me they really liked having these detailed notes on the web, so I began writing up notes on everything we covered in discussion section.  These notes ended up being popular, not only with my students, but also students in the other TA's sections.
Spring 1999:  Econ 130, Public Finance
For this class, the professor asked the TAs to work through certain problems in our sections.  While doing this, I tried to make sure the students understood the theory and concepts behind the problems.  I also gave them real life examples of the economic concepts.  Often answered questions on class electronic bulletin board.
Winter 1999:  Econ 130, Public Finance
The professor had never had a TA for Econ 130 before, so this was a kind of experiment.  I was also the only TA for this class.  The professor handed out a long list of practice questions, so much of my TA sections was spent working through these problems.  These questions were primarily essay questions with graphs, so I made sure the students had a clear grasp of the economic concepts and the main points of the various articles assigned.  The professor would also occasionally ask me to cover something he did not have time to cover thoroughly in lecture.  In the student evaluations, the students were asked to comment, not only on my performance, but also on whether they thought having a TA for this class was useful.
Fall 1998:  Econ 130, Public Finance
Primarily worked through previous exam problems step by step, making sure students understood the theory and concepts behind each problem.  I also gave real life examples of the concepts covered.
Spring 1998:  Econ 11, Intermediate Microeconomics
This class was very mathematical, so I worked through a lot of practice problems.  I showed how all the mathematical concepts related to each other.  I also tried to put the math into plain English to make it easier on students who weren't as mathematically inclined--so that even if they got tripped up on the calculations, they could still reason out the steps they should take to solve a problem.
Winter 1998:  Econ 1, Introductory Microeconomics
Class was similar to Fall 1997, so used many of my same notes and handouts.  No quizzes, but each TA contributed a problem to each homework. Fall 1997:  Econ 1, Introductory Microeconomics
My first quarter as a TA.  The professor had us give many quizzes, which we made ourselves.  I gave slightly different quizzes to each of my sections.  Sections were spent going over the concepts covered in lecture, working through the quiz questions, and working through problems from previous exams. Misc. comments from students