Student Evaluations
To the right shows a graph of assessments from students for every semester I have taught as a TA. From Summer 2013 to Summer 2014 I taught General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry Laboratory classes. These class were very restricted in the role of the TA. TA helped assist students in setting up and running experiments but had no control over material.
I began teaching Organic Chemistry Discussion classes in the Spring of 2015. Organic Chemistry is a very difficult course and is often seen by undergraduates as the “weed out” course for Medical School. My ratings were higher than my department average however lower than the average for the College of Arts and Sciences. In general, my department (Chemistry) routinely receiving lower ratings then the rest of the college (Arts and Sciences). It is unclear why this might be the case but could be because of the nature of the classes in chemistry department versus other departments.
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As I spent more time teaching these Organic Chemistry discussion classes I worked on my teaching techniques and abilities as an instructor. You can see a remarkable increase in my ratings that trends upwards the longer I have worked on my skills as an instructor. This increase puts me on a higher average rating than not only my department but also the average ratings in my college.
I believe that this shows that the efforts I have put into learning to teach better has paid off in student satisfaction.
“Linda was fantastic! She was so patient and understanding during discussion sessions… She didn’t make you feel bad for not understanding something and she was welcoming to answering questions. She will make an excellent professor one day!” Fall 2018
I can not track my students’ GPA versus my teaching score or compare them against the overall GPAs of the department. The chemistry department has a wide selection of courses with drastically different difficulties. Organic Chemistry is usually taken in the second or third year and tends to be the class were most students decide to either continue with chemistry or change majors. This is also the course in which most students struggle in order to get a good grade for medical school applications. As such its not fair to compare the GPAs achieved against other classes. It would be more informative to compare them against other Organic Chemistry classes which I do not have the data available. In addition, since I only teach a portion of the course, I do not have access to all of my students GPA data.
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I think the most telling assessment of my teaching ability comes from the comments posted from my students. Below is a quick selection. For a more through glimpse of my reviews I have provided links to screenshots of comments from my last two years of teaching. These reviews are what I am most proud of as a TA. While I can not quantify the effect I have had on my students, I can be happy that I seem to have the effect of making my students feel that chemistry is more enjoyable, that I can clarify concepts, take away their intimidation and provide them with a safe place to ask questions, make mistakes, and learn organic chemistry.
“Linda is wonderful in the way that she makes tricky concepts that might seem intimidating at first applicable to life. She is very friendly and coaches us through the problem by asking us questions that lead to an answer rather than just telling us what it is with no explanation.” Spring 2018
“I wish I had the honor to be one of her students full time and not just for 50 minutes. She did an incredible job explaining a very difficult subject and I cannot thank her enough for that. She was hilarious and would always make my Friday afternoons worth while because who in their right mind wants to go to class on Fridays anyways? There is no doubt that her future students will be nothing but successful. She has the potential to make a significant impact on many student’s lives and college education. If there was an award for the best TA, I would give it to her and I had quite the handful of TA’s in the four years I have been at this school. Thank you, Mrs. Barbeto!!” Spring 2017
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“Linda is very helpful. She explains concepts multiple times until the class understands the material. She was my biggest resource for passing organic chemistry.” Fall 2018
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“She was able to relate to college students to teach us the material. Made sure to answer our questions by provoking thoughts and by never explicitly giving us the answer.” Fall 2017