Progress Report

My observations thus far have been when I was in the second floor TA office, in route to Practicum, or in Practicum itself. I questioned approximately four people and got similar responses from three of the four. Interestingly the three persons in agreement are all MA Literature students and the fourth person was from the MAPC program.

Office
The literature students felt the most information they learned and best place to talk was in the TA office. One female said that the TA office allows the teachers to talk about their individual classes, how certain techniques are working, give each other feedback, and assure one another that they are in the same situation if one TA is worried about job performance.

The office also shared more pros and cons of working in the shared space. I will list the two below:

Pros
-always have someone else in the office if situation/conference with a student gets awkward
-crucial value is having "back up"
-Feedback is good

Cons
-gets hectic
-no one-on-one time when students come in for conferences (other people talking, internet surfing with music, and/or heating up food in the microwave)

The office dynamic as it is known from the three TAs who have similar office hours was agreed by all three members. "Jim" was characterized as the technical leader while "Amy" and "Ben" have a good relationship between each other. They agreed that the three TAs all worked well together, but simply distinguished "Jim" as their leader in this cooperative.

Practicum
On October 22, 2008 these were the observations from Practicum:
-Faculty leader addressed why many of the TAs had abandoned working from the syllabus and not told her
-Side conversations among TAs in class were minimal, if any. Room was very quiet
-Teacher addressed maybe their decisions and lack of communication showed a possible lack of trust or intimidation; expressed maybe office assistant should take over weekly sessions
-Asked TAs what it was that they did in their classrooms. Students replied saying they wanted feedback from their peers about how they are holding class. Other students said they wanted examples of student works and how to introduce theories
-Leader said she liked the idea students suggested about spending the first 10 minutes of class to talk about how they teach class
-Of 32 people in Practicum, 6 people sat with their hands on their faces in the "thinker" pose, several people were either yawning or napping, and approximately 5 people walked in late over the course of 25 minutes
-8 laptops were open and running programs such as online forums to instant messenger
-Leader decided to open the floor for questions and communication, trying to encourage the office atmosphere during Practicum.
-TAs learned about the Creative Suite 3 bundle that students [and themselves] could purchase form the Apple store on campus. Students could buy computer programs at discounted rates. This topic sprang from a TA's concern about how to address the final multi-modal assignment her class had to do and how she would explain it in a "dumb classroom".
-As Practicum neared the final 15 minutes, TAs slowly contributed more to the conversation

MAPC TA Headed to Practicum
-Admitted to spending a total of less than an hour in the TA office. Said students did not visit
-Literature students approach class vastly different from a MAPC student. Not a bad thing "Ken" said, but should reconcile the situation somehow.
-Half of the ENGL 103 kids want the MA Lit experience and half of them do not
-The syllabus and At a Glance observations are only useful if you can integrate them into major assignments
-Program as a whole has issue of consistency and certain portions being of little or no relevance
-Said specifically that the summer training session and the actual teaching seem to never intersect. They come bottom up and not top down
-Does not see sharing an office with 7 literature TA as "his thing"
-A big gap exists between MAPC and MA Literature students
-With regards to teaching, MAPC students are the product and Lit. students are the process
-"Ken" states that for one of his classes, he has to follow behind "Chuck", a MA Literature student. Some of "Ken's" students see all the written information that "Chuck" has left on the chalkboard from his class and seem to question "Ken" as to why they do not get that same experience from him.