Microteaching

Me via Microteaching

While being a grad student, I help TA a class. Cornell Engineering requires all new grad student TAs to complete Microteaching as part of the TA training program. In Microteaching, each TA teaches a 5 minute micro-lesson on any topic to a micro-class of 4-5 TAs. Later, as a group, they will review a videotape of each of their teaching, see and reflect on teaching approaches, and get feedback from peers.

Thanks to procrastination, I started preparing my microteaching session an hour before I presented. I gave a 5 minute session on Chinese New Year. Afterwards, when looking back at the recorded videotape and reflecting upon myself, I am amazed to see how much it revealed about me, things that are just me and things I need to improve on.

The videotape reveals a few things about me:

• I am a naturally happy person (mainly because I am truly grateful for life and everything I have), so I am “high” most of the time if not all the time.
• I like to compliment people and provide positive encouragement, saying things like “awesome”, “smart” naturally without realizing. I might pick up this habit subconsciously from training people in street workout. It is what I usually do to enhance confidence in people and push them to stretch further.
• I like to tell and explain things with examples, analogies, and stories, because that is how I learn best and things often become more concrete and relatable that way.
• I act funny sometimes. One reason for this is that I find happy and funny people approachable and I hope to create an approachable presence to others. Another reason is that I like having and creating a fun and comfortable environment. I think this type of environment connects people in a more personal level and encourages them to be more open to share their actual thoughts.

Things I need to improve on:

• I “um” a lot, like a lot in the video. I don’t normally “um” that much, maybe because I haven’t gotten a chance to practice.
• I verbalized some of my thoughts, but could have done better. I realized my thoughts go way faster than I could verbalize them. Some concepts that I explained in my head several times but I never get to say it out. I need to be more conscious of the things I actually say out loud vs things I say in my head. (Likewise, I say things faster than I could write them, so I didn't write and spell out some of the words on board. Teaching really takes practice.)
• My gesture is wild, going all over the place. I felt ok to let my body wander freely, maybe I should constraint myself sometimes.
• My pace of speaking is fast sometimes, so am I a fast paced person. I could be more clear and slow down a bit sometimes to avoid trading quality with speed.