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Using undergraduate teaching assistants in a small college environment

Published: 09 March 2011 Publication History

Abstract

The use of undergraduate teaching assistants in computer science courses is not new but is primarily thought of as a way to help with large classes in universities and rarely for small classes in small colleges. In this paper we discuss the success we have had over the past 2 years using undergraduate students as teaching assistants for a number of small computer science classes. Our experience has shown that having undergraduates as teaching assistants helps to engage students with the material, creates a more relaxed classroom environment in which students feel more free to ask questions, improves the effectiveness of class time, and improves class quality. We believe that our experiences using undergraduate teaching assistants can be beneficial not only to small colleges but also to large universities.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGCSE '11: Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
    March 2011
    754 pages
    ISBN:9781450305006
    DOI:10.1145/1953163
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 09 March 2011

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    Author Tags

    1. computer science education
    2. undergraduate teaching assistants

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    Cited By

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    • (2023)Student Expectations of Tutors in Computing CoursesProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569766(437-443)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
    • (2022)An Exploration of Student-Tutor Interactions in ComputingProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524786(435-441)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
    • (2022)Designing TA Training for Computer Science Graduate Students: Remote and Self-paced Options for A Supported Introduction to Reflective TeachingProceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 110.1145/3478431.3499342(752-758)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2022
    • (2022)Training beyond the classroom: Case Study of the Impact of a Undergraduate Teaching Assistantship program2022 IEEE IFEES World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC)10.1109/WEEF-GEDC54384.2022.9996214(1-5)Online publication date: 27-Nov-2022
    • (2021)Undergraduate teaching assistantships: exploring career readiness and relationality among Emirati studentsHigher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning10.1108/HESWBL-03-2021-004512:1(64-77)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2021
    • (2020)Examining strategies to improve student success in CS1Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3381631.338164935:4(124-132)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2020
    • (2020)Undergraduate teaching assistants can provide support for reformed practices to raise student learningAdvances in Physiology Education10.1152/advan.00090.201944:1(32-38)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2020
    • (2020)Co-Teaching Computer Science Across BordersProceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale10.1145/3386527.3405915(103-113)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2020
    • (2019)Report of the SIGCSE committee on computing education in liberal arts collegesACM Inroads10.1145/331402710:2(22-29)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2019
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