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.
-
TA web page
- includes handouts posted
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
-
Section 1: Mean: 8.25 Median: 8.50
(Dept-wide mean: 7.69 median: 7.89)
-
Section 2: Mean: 8.27 Median: 8.00
-
student comments from evaluation forms (not available yet)
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.
-
TA web page
- includes class web notes
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
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.
-
TA web page
- includes class web notes
-
Student Evaluations (not available for this term due to vendor processing
error)
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.
-
TA web page - includes handouts posted
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
-
Section 1: Mean: 8.36 Median: 8.00
(Dept-wide mean: 7.66 median: 7.80)
-
Section 2: Mean: 8.00 Median: 8.00
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.
-
TA web page - includes handouts posted
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
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.
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
-
Section 1: Mean: 6.93 Median: 7.50
(Dept-wide mean: 7.45 median: 7.66)
-
Section 2: Mean: 8.20 Median: 9.00
(I don't recall why the evaluations differed so much between sections--Possibly,
I made a some mistakes in the first section which I made sure not to repeat
in the second section?? Or due to my own classes, I was less prepared
for the first section. I've definitely learned the value of being
well prepared and organized when teaching)
-
student comments from evaluation forms
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.
-
Handouts (see Spring 2001 Econ 11)
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
-
Section 1: Mean: 7.50 Median: 7.50
(Dept-wide mean: 7.40 median: 7.68)
-
Section 2: Mean: 7.43 Median: 7.50
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.
-
Handouts (no electronic versions)
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
-
Section 1: Mean: 7.86 Median: 8.00
(Dept-wide mean: 7.34 median: 7.53)
-
Section 2: Mean: 7.61 Median: 8.00
-
Section 3: Mean 6.95 Median:
8.00
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.
-
Handouts (no electronic versions)
-
Student Evaluations (out of 9):
-
Section 1: Mean: 6.74 Median: 7.00
(Dept-wide mean: 7.30 median: 7.48)
-
Section 2: Mean: 6.64 Median: 7.00
-
Section 3: Mean 6.46 Median:
7.00
Misc. comments from students