(or: a delicate form of Project Management)
The quarter after I took ENGS 21: Introduction to Engineering, I began TA’ing it, and I’ve been a teacher’s assistant for the class 6 times since. Just as the class was unlike any other I’ve taken, being a teacher’s assistant for it was not the role you’d typically imagine. I didn’t grade problem sets nor exams, and I didn’t hold office hours. Instead, I was paired each term with a group of 4-5 students, who were tasked with going through the human centered engineering design process to develop a product prototype.
The bulk of the work for the class is the project and product around which the HCED process centers. However, this project is rarely mentioned by the professor in lecture. The lectures are structured such that need-finding is discussed at the beginning of the class, when the teams should be need-finding, and rapid prototyping techniques are covered towards the middle of the term, but there are few checkpoints besides a midterm proposal report and presentation due date, and a final report and presentation due date. Thus, my job as a TA was to check in with my team at least weekly to make sure that they understood what they should be doing, where they were headed, and that they were working together well. I helped them problem solve, and think creatively, break up tasks among the team. Essentially, I acted as a project manager, except that I did my best to never directly tell them what to do, but instead lead them to their own conclusions. Through this process, I taught students HCED and how to work on a team, and as with all teaching, learned these skills more thoroughly myself. I also got to meet many people I otherwise wouldn’t have met, and help them bring their ideas to life– and hopefully ensured that one of their first experiences at Thayer was a positive one.
Another major aspect of the position (and possibly my favorite part) was hosting practice presentation sessions. Arguably, this was where I got to make the greatest impact as a TA. Student teams came to these sessions a night or two before their midterm or final presentation with a usually half-finished slide deck, and I, along with other TAs, would spend 30-60 minutes with each team giving feedback on and workshopping their presentation. Communication is a science. Presenting a circular, technical process in an engaging way is an art. And it’s an art that I have gotten to practice extensively on my own presentation and my students’.