55 Notable experiences and feelings

What are some of the experiences/feelings that stand out to you, when you think back on your first TF experience?

BF: I’d left a teaching career to do this post-grad degree, so I was just delighted to be teaching again. I was also HUGELY glad for my incredible senior TA and my team of TAs, who were so responsible and invaluable to student learning and course success — it was a reminder to always design for and acknowledge the work TAs do for so many of courses.

It’s hard to reflect on the experience overall because the remote teaching was such a crisis obligation and I can’t compare it to in-person classes with any kind of parity. I suppose my advice to incoming TFs is to ask for help wherever you can or need to, because the sheer detail of designing and delivering a course can be overwhelming. Look at course plans and assignment descriptions from teachers you admire and find what works for you in layout and detail. Include your favourite texts or previous lectures/written work about those texts if you can, because that saves a lot of time! But mostly, be wary of the amount of work you’re asking yourself and your students to do, week to week. There’s rarely a reason to assign hundreds of pages of reading, or to have numerous assignments due the same week (or weighty ones on consecutive weeks). Remember you’ll have to plan, deliver and mark things, so think realistically about how much time and energy you’ll have to devote to those. All of this is very easy to say but not at all simple to do, so be gentle with yourself and decide to choose fun wherever you can!