TA

[Aeson]

I am now listed on my school's website as a TA and very soon forty business majors will be trying to ignore my annoying voice for fifty minutes a week while staring at their iPhones. Oh god how did this happen.

Just throw down some incense in Pokemon GO and they'll all love you ... and be too busy to bother you.

[Main_Brain]

Wear a turban and bring a crystal ball to you first session. Business Majors often confuse Astronomy and astrology, you can work with that.

[Lorizael]

Recently I have only taught graduate students. And outside the US.

When I was a TA the iPhone didn't exist.

It must be a different world.

JM

I mean, TAs and professors reprimand students for looking at phones all the time. But students are like cats, so the only lesson they learn is to wait until the TA/prof turns their back.

Wear a turban and bring a crystal ball to you first session. Business Majors often confuse Astronomy and astrology, you can work with that.

I wouldn't be surprised if we spend a week trying to explain the difference.

[pchang]

I used to start off in Mandarin to see how many kids would try to drop my section.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I mean, TAs and professors reprimand students for looking at phones all the time. But students are like cats, so the only lesson they learn is to wait until the TA/prof turns their back.

Students in my courses stop using their phones when I demonstrate Firesheep in class. Might be harder to make topical in astronomy, but I'm sure you could come up with a way.

[Jon Miller]

I think that once the student is 18, that they can choose whether they want to learn or not.

If they don't want to learn, then that is their choice.

They aren't kids. I am there and available.

JM

[Lorizael]

I agree, and I don't plan on policing phone use (unless, like, my professor mandates that I do or something), but I know that one of the fastest ways to enrage a professor is to ask them a question that is answered by the syllabus. More generally, I'm not going to want to waste time helping students who haven't learned something because they weren't paying attention. Staring at your cellphone in class is a good way to ensure you miss something the instructor has said. But I don't actually have any idea how I might impress this notion on students. I've seen plenty of instructors try and fail.

[rah]

Students not paying attention has been going on for centuries.
Now with phones, it's just more blatant.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The only way I've found to deal with those sorts of issues is to give an incentive for being self policing. So, FireSheep gives the incentive that they don't want me reading their Facebook messages. Another policy I have is that, every time someone asks how long a paper needs to be, I add one to whatever I said the last time I was asked. There's a lot of social pressure not to be the one that gets a ten page paper assigned over the weekend. Not paying attention is going to happen, but is less of a problem if you're working on something directly relevant to their goal (homework problems) as opposed to lecturing about something abstract that they're going to have to answer questions about later.

If you really want to get into it, look up "flipped classroom." That's a buzzword lately, but what it really means is that faculty are doing in the classroom what TAs have traditionally done in labs/recitations. Since there aren't many resources on how to be a good TA looking at how faculty are dealing with that concept might be helpful.

[Elok]

That reminds me--supposedly there's a mobile app that will shut down all wireless sessions in its vicinity. At least, I hear this guy I know used to have one. That's not much to go on, of course, and I assume said app is illegal or something, but it'd be very handy for educational purposes.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

There was a professor who brought a cell jammer to his class once. It, uh, didn't end well for him.

[kentonio]

In the UK the TA is the Territorial Army. Maybe joining that might help with your social issues.

[pchang]

Are the TA allowed to have automatic weapons?

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm not going to want to waste time helping students who haven't learned something because they weren't paying attention. Staring at your cellphone in class is a good way to ensure you miss something the instructor has said. But I don't actually have any idea how I might impress this notion on students. I've seen plenty of instructors try and fail.

One, your job is to help students. Please - don't be *that* guy. If the student comes and asks about something the prof went over already, your job is to help cover that, even if they missed it playing with their phones.

Fastest way to get students to tune out is to pull rank like this.

Two, they are business majors. You have to make the case to them that paying attention is in their best interest - ie, their grades are going to go up. That's really the simplest way of doing it. "Hey, it's not my grade if you fail".

[kentonio]

Are the TA allowed to have automatic weapons?

Hell yeah!