TA feedback from 5 years ago

November 11, 2024

Background

Recently, I reconnected with a professor I TA’ed for back at UW-Madison in 2019. He took the opportunity to share the feedback I received. It made my day reading what students have to say about me as a teacher 5 years ago.

I’ve been the lucky beneficiary of awesome teachers and mentors who shared their wisdom, and from the school of hard knocks. Grateful for the opportunities to give back!

Feedback from 2019

• Han is a fantastic TA because of his upbeat attitude toward figuring out difficult problems. I learned a lot talking to him during office hours because he doesn’t just tell me the answers but shows me how he approaches a problem. He was also interested in getting to know the students, and regularly asks about their major and why they are taking this class. I really liked that he tried to connect with students on a more personal level. He gave me useful advice on what classes to take if I am thinking of taking more upper level CS classes. I really enjoyed getting to know Han through this class and I hope to have him again as a TA in a future CS class.
• Every time I asked for Han’s help during office hours, he was very good at leading me down the right path to solve a problem on my own rather than simply revealing the answer to me right away. This helped me build better critical thinking skills for CS and for school in general. I think most of the TAs in this course do a good job at this, but Han’s help was especially effective for me.
• Thank you for encouraging me to take this course at the beginning of this semester, and thank you for believing in me!
• He always provided help during lab and was easily reached via email. He was also always really good at identifying the root of issues and providing a way to think through the problems.
• Han ALWAYS found a way to explain every confusing piece of content to ensure that every time I left office hours I both understand conceptually and how to apply the conceptual aspect to the problem
• His way of explaining things is very easy to retain
• Han is one of the most patient TAs and is extremely generous with his time. He always goes the extra mile to help and shows that he cares about you.
• I appreciated the very patient and thorough explanations
• Han helped me figure out how to debug which was a huge problem for me because my issue was deep in my code. i really appreciate the time and effort he put in to making sure I understood how to decode and what my error was.
• When I went to the office hour for help on the project, I really appreciate that Han always ask you to write down what you could have thought so far and guide you to write the pseudocode first. He tends to let you figure out the solution youself once he have exaplained the knowledge necessary for the quesion. It doeso take more time but at the end I did learn more about the particular concept and they stick with me longer.