The Teaching Restaurant

TAing is just like opening a restaurant.

Now that I've grabbed you like a Wendy's Frosty^(TM) (apologies to those who do not like Frosties), let me try to explain why (and stop trying to be funny). The slogans work out pretty well:

Fresh, never frozen (Wendy's, Five Guys), I'm lovin' it (McDonalds). Be genuinely excited about the material! Always remember that student excitement is usually upper bounded by that of their TAs. So, be fresh, not frozen: don't just explain things in monotone, even at a 9am recitation. True passion is infectious! On the same note, have fun! Sometimes cracking jokes is the way to go, but if they're so cringe inducing that they're distracting to students (which I'm definitely guilty of), still make sure to keep the students somehow engaged. Keep the lecture dynamic and always be ready for alternate solutions!

When you're here, you're family (Olive Garden), It takes two hands to hold a Whopper (Burger King). Remember that teaching is not one-sided - TAs and students must work together to find a common ground. Teaching should be like a conversation, not a monologue. In the overall scheme of TAing: be available and talkative! Students will only get as much out of the course as TAs (and professors) give out, so being supportive can go a long way toward reducing stress and gaining trust with students in that they can ask you for help.

Keep Discovering (Subway), Think outside the bun (Taco Bell). There is no one right away to teach: everyone has their own style. "Keep discovering" new techniques to teach the students: whether through real world examples, through mountain ranges, or through mnemonics, new ways of teaching are always important. As a TA, make sure to recall how you learned the material at one point, and make sure that the experience for your students is even better than the one you had. My personal advice is to be intuitive: the details will fill themselves in!

License to Grill (Chili's). There's a lot that happens behind the scenes of TAing (almost like at a restaurant), from grading (including rubric design, calibration, allocations, etc.) to more logistical tasks such as assigning TAs to proctoring. Remember that as much as TAing is about interacting with students, it is also about making the student experience that little bit smoother.

Even past the slogans, much of the philosophy of opening a restaurant is the same. At the end of the day, I think of TAing as having access to a bunch of restaurants (just so happens I chose fast food restaurants here), and having the freedom to open your own small cafe taking the best parts of each of these worlds. What the students (and, importantly, you!) get out of your teaching relies entirely on the parts you choose from these restaurants and how you combine them together.

My own cafe consists of a combination of many different teaching strategies, from the amazing teachers and mentors I've taught for: Professors Ada, Cervesato, Harchol-Balter, and Wang, to my fellow TAs, to the TAs I've had, to my fellow peers, to the many students I have had the pleasure to teach. Without all of them, there's no way I would have my own cozy cafe.