Harvard's TF Boot Camp

Well, maybe "boot camp" isn't the right word. It's where poorly rated Harvard graduate student teaching fellows go to be trained in the finer points of leading an undergraduate class discussion. It's located in the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Kevin Zhou wrote it up in The Crimson. An excerpt:

Over the past few years, the Bok Center has seen a number of bad TFs come and go through its doors, and there are several overriding characteristics that show up time and time again, [Director James] Wilkinson said.

There is the “nice guy who can’t teach”—the TF who goes into a class with good intentions but does not understand how to guide a meaningful discussion—and there is the graduate student who does not understand how to connect with a “lowly” undergraduate. Then there is the foreign TF who doesn’t speak English well, as well as the one who is not familiar with the American education system.

Wilkinson said the majority of poorly rated TFs come from math- and science-related departments. The rest of the article is

here.