Here's a blog post from Bethany Davis:
It has been said that the best way to learn is to
teach. That is why I was so excited when
I found out I was chosen to be a CIS 120 Teaching Assistant at the beginning of
this semester.
My name is Bethany Davis and I’m a sophomore at SEAS
studying Computer Science. CIS 120, or
Programming Languages and Techniques I, was the first computer science course I
took at Penn. During the first half of
the semester, I learned my first functional programming language, OCaml,
through a series of increasingly challenging weekly assignments that build off
of previous concepts and syntax structures. The OCaml portion of the course
culminates in a GUI project similar to Microsoft Paint. The second half of the course transitions
from OCaml to Java, and culminates in a largely self-directed project in which
each student designs a Java game. When I
took the course, I built a version of the Snake game from scratch. I found the course to be rewarding because I
learned a new programming language, constantly challenged my programming
abilities, and produced tangible projects that I could demo for my friends.
The spring semester of my freshman year, two of my hall-mates
enrolled in the course. I found myself
staying up late to help them with the assignments. I found it very rewarding to share my own CIS
120 experiences with my friends, and it was also very fulfilling to see the
influence I had on my peers: one of my
hall-mates ended up declaring a minor in CS, while another hall-mate went so
far as to consider a second major in CS.
I realized that I had a passion for spreading my love of programming to
others, and I wanted to find a way to give back to the CS community at Penn, so
I decided to apply to become a CIS 120 teaching assistant. After an application and an interview, I was
hired as a CIS 120 TA for the Fall 2014 semester!
The infrastructure of the entry-level CIS courses at Penn is
very well established.
Every week, I
attend a CIS 120 staff meeting to debrief on the previous week’s lecture
concepts and assignments, review plans for the upcoming week, and discuss the
overall trajectory of the course.
As a
new TA, I also attend weekly TA training sessions with first-time teaching
assistants and Head TA’s from the other entry-level courses.
During training sessions, we discuss a
variety of topics ranging from how to best conduct a recitation to how to
increase diversity within computer science.
Training sessions definitely help me think critically about my teaching
and my role as a TA.
While it may seem that being a teaching assistant primarily
entails helping others, I have found that my role as a TA has also been
beneficial for my own sake. As a TA, I
am responsible for teaching a weekly recitation, holding weekly office hours,
and grading students’ weekly assignments for style, testing, and
efficiency. Once of the most challenging
(yet rewarding) parts of being a TA is helping individual students during
office hours. It is difficult to strike
a balance between guiding a student towards the right answer while still
allowing the student to solve the problem independently. The most fulfilling part of being a TA is
when I am helping a student in office hours and the student suddenly reaches
that “AHA!” or “eureka!” moment of understanding. Whenever I help a student reach this moment
while solving a difficult problem, I am reminded why computer science is such
an incredible field to be a part of, and why computer science sparked my
interest in the first place. Furthermore,
although grading assignments can be tedious and time-consuming, I have found it
to be very beneficial to my own journey as a computer science student. Reading other students’ code allows me to
visualize many different solutions and approaches to the same problem. Additionally, when I am forced to be critical
of other students’ code, it teaches me to be more critical of the code I write
myself, and I have found that through grading poorly written code, I am
inspired to write more readable, well-written code for my own assignments. Finally, being a TA has helped me prepare for
technical interviews. It can be very
challenging and uncomfortable to discuss algorithms and code segments with an
interviewer, but because I get practice explaining algorithms and code during
recitations every week, I have felt much more at ease whenever I approach
questions in a technical interview.
I am grateful for the opportunity to be a teaching assistant
even though I am only an undergraduate student in computer science. While my role as a TA is primarily to teach
others, I am also grateful for everything that being a TA has taught me!
As engineering graduate students at the University of
Pennsylvania, we spend our days working with hard numbers, algorithms,
scientific equipment, and biological cultures, looking for answers to tough questions.
Sometimes, a break from research can be very valuable, and so we helped AWE
host a Stress Relief Paint Night, where graduate students could come and
exercise their creative, artistic sides, and do some work that doesn't have an
answer at all, much less a right one.
We provided canvases, paint, and lots of paintbrushes. For those who needed a
little artistic inspiration, we projected a short video walk-through of how to
create a simple acrylic painting for people to follow along. Some attendees
surprised us with their advanced painting skills! There were lots of unique
paintings in all sorts of styles: realism, impressionism, even some (perhaps
unintentional) abstract expressionism. Everyone seemed to bond over their
painting successes and "happy accidents." The paint night was a great
way to relieve stress, relax, and socialize with grad students from departments
other than our own. 
