Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2008-Spring
Course Description:
Dave's comments:
I wasn't expecting to be TAing again but the department was short-handed, and so I was able to get in one last term. I was asked to develop a new lab for the course on regular expressions, and I found that to be a very rewarding experience. This year the instructors encouraged students to get 'participation marks' by handing in 3 questions each at the beginning of each tutorial. The primary intent was to get the students thinking about questions to ask, as I wasn't expected to answer them. I wasn't a big fan of this strategy, and it seemed a little futile at times. I would try to flip through the stack of questions on the spot and try to answer some in class, but I generally preferred to go through some prepared exercises and get to their questions only if I had time at the end. I encouraged students to come visit me in my hours at the learning centre if they had questions I couldn't get to in tutorial, but I think my inability to get to their questions in class frustrated some students, which is reflected in a few comments below. Except for the unusual class participation mark strategy I found it to be a very fun and rewarding term.
Evaluations:
Number of Respondents: 43 / ?
The Teaching Assistant was:
| Q1. Well Prepared | 4.91 / 5 |
| Q2. Helpful | 4.84 / 5 |
| Q3. Considerate of students | 4.63 / 5 |
| Q4. Easily understood | 4.84 / 5 |
| Q5. An effective instructor | 4.81 / 5 |
Q6. My suggestions for improving the effectiveness of the teaching assistant are:
A very talented and helpful TA.
Always manages to make the course interesting! Great Teacher! Keep up the good work!
- Awesome summary notes, great cheat sheet notes
- Great job w/ regular expression lab A++++
Best TA I've ever had. Hilarious, involved and clear. Keep it up, Dave!
Dave is a fantastic instructor and makes the learning fun. Takes the time to get to know his students names.
Dave is a very good guy. He should get a job (real). ha ha.
Dave is a very humourous, very interesting instructor. He has excellent notes & examples. He really helps us to understand concepts. Overall, very good TA.
Dave is the best TA I've ever had. He kept the class interesting while making the course much easier for his students.
Dave was an awesome TA. I learned a lot from his tutorials since he really encouraged participation.
Dave would be a much more effective instructor if he learned to listen to his students and adapt his material accordingly. Questions not covered in his prepared handout often went unanswered.
Entertaining tutorials.
Fantastic T.A., could answer every question put forward by the students and provided helpful advice both online and in person. Notes online saved me! Thanks Dave.
Follows his teaching outline for the class extremely closely. The only negative was that if a question gets asked outside of this outline, he seems to not answer the question... especially if it takes too long..
Funny, outgoing, helpful, and easy to connect. Though your outgoingness may scare the more introverted students.
Great TA, helpful notes and classes. Good examples.
He is very helpful. He explains the material very well. His summary notes are perfect.
I found that he was very efficient and helpful instructor. He would try to make you understand everything.
It is better to not skip the minor details when explaining the examples in class.
Lectures and notes are very good :)
-n/a- He's perfect!
Nothing I can say will improve his instruction. Easy to understand, knowledgeable, and saved me on multiple quizzes / assignments.
One of the best TA in my university years! Great communication, very helpful and fun! :)
Printouts of what you post on your webpage would be handy to have in class so that we con go over them.
Quality, helpful instruction. Nice, approachable guy. Put students on the spot sometimes, but perhaps this is a good thing.
- Very helpful and knowledgeable
- Witty
- Love the tutorial notes
- Great job
- very helpful, sometimes if I missed a class, going to his tutorial class
helped me catch up
- sometimes ask for participation too much
- should watch level of communication
Well prepared, great notes, encouraged participation! Great TA!!
You made a boring class not so boring.
Your handout is very helpful.