Teacher Assistant Application Essay Sample

Words: 470
Pages: 2

As a graduate researcher in engineering field, it is my obligation to play a role in the discovery of new knowledge. As a teacher assistant, however, I consider an even greater responsibility is the perpetuation of the field and its current body of knowledge. Teaching allows me to promote the discipline to which I have devoted a significant portion of my life, and to show people the beauty of computation in terms of science, technology, and mathematics.
As a person who is a teacher assistant, an important question that I have repeatedly asked myself is: how do undergraduate students learn? My experience has led me to believe that there exist teaching has two basic missions, which are helping students 1) to learn problem solving skills, and
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Instead of going directly to the solution, I tended to provide suggestions or refer to previously solved related problems to guide students to solve the problem themselves. Even sometimes it took a lot of time, I was patient and tried to clarify problems in several methods. I felt very pleased when they finally solved the problem themselves. Many times, I could even gain more understanding of a problem when I described it from a different perspective. Also, with regards to technology in the classroom I am neither for nor against it. As, I have learned in one of the workshops which held by Center for teaching and learning, teaching with technology can extend student learning by supporting instructional objectives. Therefore, I used different software in order to get connected with all the students in a same way. For example, during one of my tutorial sessions students were asked to write computer code which is a unit converter. I created an online file on Google Drive and shared that with all the students to demonstrate how to generate code in Microsoft Excel office. Shortly, I felt that most of the students learnt how to start their problem and this could not be achieved during class time without using