What's wrong with asking "Are there any questions?"

Getting students engaged in the course materials is often (explicitly or implicitly) part of the TA role. Typically, you want to know what your students think about a reading or a concept, and perhaps where they’re struggling. Maybe you start with the question or maybe you use it to wrap up after having explained something—either way, “Are there any questions?” may NOT be the best way of generating discussion or helping students feel comfortable with the material. Asking this question at the beginning of tutorial heightens student anxiety because being able to formulate questions about a concept is often a good indication of at least some understanding of the concept; whereas students may not be sure if they have grasped enough to feel confident admitting where they are in their efforts. Asking this question at the end of tutorial also raises some anxieties, since there may be an expectation that, now that tutorial is over students should understand the subject better. Also, there’s the added time pressure that kicks in for you and for the students, since if they don’t get it, there isn’t much time to do anything about it. However, it IS a good question when doing a short individual or group task while in tutorial. For example, you might break students into groups and ask them to complete a worksheet with questions or problems. This is a good time to ask if there are any questions, since they have a specific task with a specific outcome that you want them to understand. In other words, the “Are there any questions?” question might work best not at the beginning or end of tutorial, but in the middle. Timing is the key!

The PhD and the Autonomous Self: gender, rationality and postgraduate pedagogy

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/713696141 (i can email the pdf around on request)

Although referring specifically to an Australian context, I think there is crossover to higher ed. practices in this other commonwealth nation.

Also, although the emphasis is on PhD supervisory relations, i think the critique of masculinity and patriarchy is useful to our interests about distinct forms of knowledge production, e.g. through peer-learning around classroom pedagogy (Arts TA).

More might be said, however, about other ways of knowing, such as the role of indigenous theory and practice, particularly since the authors are valuing shifts in learning that engage those outside of the academy.

in the end, they seem a little vague on this front, and don't detail enough (to my mind) of the practice of what they're talking about; what it might "look like," in short.

nevertheless, the critique of Kant, Rousseau and others is very useful in and of itself.

Would love comments on the article or on my thoughts here. Please post them!

Just received info back from my query into the other journal I was trying to come up with (as a possible place to submit for publication). It's the Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: www.cjsotl-rcacea.ca

First perusal: isolation

Isolation, whether total or only at specific moments, remains for now a persistent theme in the graduate student TA experience. My hunch is that emphasis on efficiency, expertise, and disciplinary knowledge, along with the TA work conditions (short-term contracts within a departmental structure allowing the university to function more cheaply with larger class sizes) give rise to isolation by exacerbating anxieties related to the "impostor syndrome" (where TAs feel they do not have what it takes to be doing what they're asked to do).

TA programs that justify themselves as compensating for a lack of skill, experience, knowledge, practice or capacity on the part of TAs, thereby undervalue graduate students' existing capacities for self-direction. Caught within the rhetoric around enhancing the quality of undergraduate education, many programs do not fully take advantage of the opportunity for building graduate students' autonomy in the TA role. Instead, the peer relations that form through these TA development programs become an accidental side-effect, a bonus to the assumed "meat" of the program, rather than an intentional centre-piece in combating isolation and supporting skill development.

An initial perusal of the literature on TA development confirms a tendency towards providing solutions about how to be a more efficient TA, often within a specific disciplinary context. While there is a place for efficiency and disciplinary or departmental standards, when these become the imaginary bar that TAs have to jump, then the actual pedagogical potential of the TA role is partially neutralized, since the TA's own unique capacities and experiences are seen as marginal, and therefore may be stunted. By contrast, there is other literature that suggests that peer relations among TAs can play a central role not only in reducing the negative effects of isolation but also in supporting a fuller development of graduate student autonomous capacities. The challenge is to create the conditions in which TAs are supported in the development of their own capacities

question of continuity

Here are some initial thoughts on the question of how to maintain the Arts TA/GA program over time.

Written documents
-Gillian problems used year-to-year
-notes taken during group sessions (i.e., group thoughts on Gillian problems)
-evaluations, including thoughts on possible changes to the program in future
-academic article
-possibility of academic poster?

Involvement of past Arts TA/GA participants
-people who have completed the program and are still at Ryerson (How to include them? How to motivate/interest them in taking part?)
-Arts TA blog; possibiity of occasional e-mail prompts to encrouage use?
-conference presentations/workshops/roundtables involving a larger group
-possibility of involving TA/GA participants from other universities? (people from Ryerson program who've relocated; people who've been through other programs/experiences from other universities who are now at Ryerson; people from other universites who wish to co-facilitate a program through blog, meetings, conference workshops/roundtables)

Institutional involvement
-allocation of space and resources
-involvement of interested faculty
(while I think this has to be acknowledged, not sure how far to go with this)

Thoughts? Comments?

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Hi All,

To my amazement, I was actually able to remember my log in info. Just hoping this is the blog we're using.

Given that I read the opening title of Matt's entry as "What is the universe" as opposed to "What is a university" I think I need my morning tea before continuing.

thanks Kris,
Catherine

What is a university?

A bit frightening to think about but better to look than ignore:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-samuels/how-americas-universities_b_440954.html