up and at it

it's wednesday... i usually sleep til 10am on wednesday... no such luck today... it's 9am, and i've been up since 8... in an hour, i get the pleasure of sitting in on an undergraduate diff eq class for engineers... woohoo?

really, it's just part of the TA training class the math department does. everyone my year took it last spring except me and eric. i should be glad that the rutgers department spends a whole semester going over the drill and with observations and practice before throwing you in a classroom... most math departments have a day or week long program right before your first semester and then toss you right in to the system.

so far every monday for the past month we've met and discussed rutgers policies and classroom preparation and last week the prof came in and purposely did things wrong the whole time and we had to stop him when we caught his goofs and correct them... then he invited a few students to the front to try as well.

this week, i sit in on a recitation. my friend mike, who helps me lots with combo hw, is the TA... he's very clear and good at explaining things, it'll just be funny to watch him in front of a room of 30 undergrads. the concept of recitations is completely foreign to me... valpo prides itself on small classes that are only taught by profs, so if nothing else, this is good for me to see how the system works.

next week we all come on monday to discuss our recitation observations... after break we visit workshops (an extended more interactive form of recitation... we could be assigned to teach either), and then discuss... and then we each have to get videotaped while giving a practice lecture with our classmates being the students and harassing us with questions, discuss the video with the prof individually, and then we're officially math dept. certified TAs... so much more to do than most schools... oi :-P

anyhow, i get to be an undergrad again for an hour, but without homework due... i'll actually understand every word of the lecture -- woohoo :-P

breakfast, then off to observe... later dudes :-P