Coincidentally, a friend in a different university and state found herself in a similar situation as I: student didn’t take final/do final paper. While I have personally never been in this situation, from the student side, here’s what we both felt would’ve made these situations a lot better. Inform the grader/professor/TA immediately. It sounds very [...]

After the Boston marathon bombing, the lockdown, and the subsequent capture of one of the suspects, it obviously hasn’t been easy being a Bostonian. I don’t know anyone who was directly affected by what has happened, but it was a turbulent week. While this past week has been pretty uneventful on a personal level and [...]

A conversation with a student got me thinking about completing college in 3 years vs. 4 years. He was attempting to do this and was very stressed as his time was an incredibly precious commodity. Some of this oddly applies to me as a graduate student. The perks are money and time; college is ghastly [...]

A bit ago, I had an idea to have a panel for my students to listen to about being involved in K-12 science education. Sometimes, it isn’t clear how other folks can be involved in education period if they aren’t going to be teachers or aren’t parents. One of the things I like about the [...]

I began observing my grad student teachers this past month. I’ve observed fellow TAs before (as more of a favor than a job requirement), but this is a little different. Being in grad school for education has definitely increased my knowledge of what good teaching is. Other than getting up earlier in the morning than [...]

This past weekend I had the privilege of helping out with the Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) Leadership conference. The conference is held for the incoming freshmen to get acquainted with the program and learn to navigate college. There is one conference on the East coast and one on the West coast. Older undergrads and graduated [...]

The school year started off in such a way that my sleep and energy have not been going so well. My new learning assistant (LA) students have been full of questions and my Gk-12s have also brought up questions. Between both groups, there are 26 students. I have a better feel for Gk-12 but I’m [...]

I thoroughly enjoyed partaking in the training with the fellows and teachers; I am excited to see what kind of work they do this upcoming school year. Although I did not do much, I really enjoyed being there. It is a really lovely thing to see how dedicated teachers, grad students, and a university can [...]

I’m baking cookies to bring into the class I TAed this summer. Last semester, a classmate of mine mentioned that he brings in candy to his students, because it’s his way of showing that he cares and that he cares about them without actually saying that (it can come off corny if you say something [...]

Last week, my students did poster presentations on their teaching experiences. They all did amazing jobs on the presentations and sparked many good discussions. Towards the end of the poster presentation, they and other members of the audience began a discussion on the general chemistry class itself. A few of us agreed upon doing a [...]