Music Department TA Training

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This wiki page is intended to serve as a syllabus for the TA training course of the music department (Music 280) and as a resource for teaching assistants containing helpful information and links.

Program of the Workshop

May 4, 2019 (CCRMA - Classroom, 2nd floor)

  • 09:00am - 10:30am: Breakfast / Overview of TA work and Policies / Reflection on Teaching Goals
  • 10:30am - 12:00pm: Round table with recent graduates and faculty: instructor expectations and tips ++ overview of the academic job market
  • 12:00pm - 12:45pm: Lunch break
  • 12:45pm - 04:00pm: Teaching workshop (with coffee/tea break)

May 5 (Braun - Room 131)

  • 09:00am: Doors open, breakfast served
  • 09:15am - 11:15am: Teaching workshop at Braun
  • 11:15am - 12:15pm: Reflection on Pedagogy and Inclusion in the classroom
  • 12:15pm - 1:00pm: Lunch + Q&A session

Teaching in Braun and CCRMA

Braun

CCRMA

  • TAing Tips for CCRMA Courses
  • Cables/Gears, Audio/Video Equipment
  • Scheduling rooms and office hours

Stanford TA resources and requirements

General Resources

Required Trainings

Improving as a TA

Consider getting help from the Vice Provost for Teaching & Learning (VPTL) to obtain feedback from your students. This is extremely valuable if you are considering a career in Academia and/or if you are new to teaching at Stanford. VPTL Feedback Options

Find more teaching development opportunities: Graduate Teaching Commons - Grad Teaching Workshops and Resources

International Teaching Assistants

Round Table 1: Instructor Expectations and Tips

Panelists

  • Giancarlo Aquilanti
  • Stephen Hinton
  • Francois Rose

CCRMA Q&A with Elliot Kermit Canfield-Dafilou at lunch

Round Table 2: Overview of the Academic Job Market

Panelists

  • Giancarlo Aquilanti
  • Stephen Hinton
  • Heather Hadlock
  • François Rose

CCRMA Q&A with Elliot Kermit Canfield-Dafilou at lunch

Student-Centered Teaching Resources

Student Learning Resources

Resources for Inclusive Classrooms

Students with Disabilities

Visit the OAE (Office of Accessible Education] website for student and faculty rights and responsibilities surrounding accessible education. The website provides help understanding what OAE can provide, the role of teaching staff in providing accessibility, understanding exam accommodations, and more.

Advice for working with first-gen/low-income students

Implicit Bias Test

Dealing with Difficult Situations

What do I do if a student has threatened suicide or disclosed severe emotional or psychological distress?

Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) counsel with Stanford community members who are concerned about a student. https://vaden.stanford.edu/caps-and-wellness/assisting-students-distress

  • If you feel the situation presents imminent danger or harm to anyone, call 911 immediately.
  • If the situation is urgent, or if you’d like help assessing the situation, contact a CAPS on-call clinician at 650-723-3785 anytime. Regular office hours are M–F 8:30am–5pm. If you’re calling at any other time, you’ll be forwarded to the answering machine service: don’t be alarmed! The service will page the on- call clinician, who will return your call within twenty minutes. Leave a message identifying yourself as a Stanford faculty or staff member, indicating the urgency of your request and a phone number where you can be reached.
  • If your situation is non-urgent but you’d like help handling it, contact the counseling staff at CAPS (650-723-3785). Each academic department is assigned a consultant who supports faculty and staff in dealing with student concerns. You can also visit this page: Supporting Vulnerable Students.
  • Two more resources if you are concerned about a student:

What do I do if I suspect a student may pose a risk to themselves or to others?

Report the behavior to the Stanford Department of Public Safety (650-723-9633, or https://police.stanford.edu/#contactsection). If it is an emergency, call 911 immediately.

What do I do if I suspect there has been an Honor Code Violation?

  • First, do your best to assess whether a violation has occurred by reviewing these documents:
  • Speak with the course’s principal instructor as soon as possible.
  • If the principal instructor cannot be reached, contact the Office of Community Standards (650-725-2485 or community_standards@stanford.edu) to get help assessing the situation.
  • Review procedures for reporting Honor Code Concerns at the Office of Community Standards. A few notes:
    • It is recommended that concerns be reported within sixty days of the incident.
    • Once you submit a concern, you have initiated a judicial process, so please use the utmost discretion.
    • Be sure to maintain students' confidentiality throughout the process. If you discuss an Honor Code matter with anyone other than your principal instructor, avoid naming the student.
  • Review your rights, described in the Student Judicial Charter.

What about any other complicated or difficult situations with students or other instructors? CAPS has an emergency number if you suspect a mental health crisis: https://vaden.stanford.edu/get-help-now/immediate-mental-health-crisis-assistance You may also contact the TA mentors, i.e. Kirstin or Julie, to discuss questions or problems.

Ideas & Techniques for Inclusive Teaching

Opportunities for conversation & engagement

  • Learn about your students
  • Think/write-pair-share
  • Distribute discussion q’s in advance
  • Ask everyone to share
  • Warm vs. cold calling
  • Appealing to prior/personal knowledge
  • Plan for “hot moments” (respond promptly to discriminatory remarks)

Ways of learning/retaining knowledge

  • Lecture often least effective way of retaining knowledge
  • Compare & contrast is one of the most effective ways of retaining knowledge
  • Multiple ways of explaining concepts
  • Visual, auditory, textual, metaphorical

Grading/feedback for learning

  • Read drafts, check homework, do practice problems
  • Provide rubrics and grading explanations
  • Explain purpose of office hours, and may "require" them if appropriate

Teaching Workshop Guidelines

General Information

Teaching Workshop Guidelines During the teaching workshop, participants will teach a lesson (no longer than 20 minutes, as short as 10 minutes is fine!) that simulates a music class. We’ll solicit feedback from the audience and discuss what worked well and what could be improved using the Feedback guidelines below. The goal of this feedback is not so much to evaluate your performance but to explore how the attendees experienced your class from the student perspective.

Choosing a Topic You may choose any music-related topic, but it must be accessible to all trainees (upper-level music undergraduates or graduate students). However, we highly recommend choosing a topic from the course you will be a TA for next year! If you are having trouble choosing a topic, please email us!

Teaching Tasks During your session, we may ask you to complete the following tasks:

  • Set up lighting, chairs, and tables
  • Distribute a paper handout
  • Write on the blackboard
  • Play an audio example over the loudspeakers
  • Show a visual on the projector from a laptop

Depending on your TA assignments, not all of these tasks will come up when you actually teach; we just want to make sure you feel comfortable doing them if necessary.

Teaching Context (with sample answers)

Please answer the following questions before the training in order to better prepare the teaching workshops:

  • Name of teacher: "Irán Roman"
  • What is the number and title for the course you’re simulating? "Music 42 (Music History after 1830)"
  • Describe the typical education level and musical background of the students in this course: "Mostly sophomores and juniors; mostly music majors who have already taken the ear training and theory sequences."
  • How long is a typical class meeting in this course? "Fifty minutes per class period"
  • What is the topic for the class meeting that you’re simulating? "Programmatic music and the development of the orchestra"
  • When does this class meeting usually occur during the quarter? "Week 2"
  • What is the subtopic for the particular twenty minutes you’ve chosen? "Hector Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique"
  • When would these twenty minutes occur within the class meeting as a whole? "The first 15 minutes of class"

Feedback Guidelines

These are some guidelines that you may consider in developing your lesson.

Here are some common student "types":

  • Student 1 is consistently late; misses some classes; is distracted and sometimes rude while in class; is indifferent to most of the material and is only there because the course is required.
  • Student 2 is talkative and enthusiastic; is always the first to enter discussion or answer questions; is eager to please; finds the material interesting but often doesn’t do the reading.
  • Student 3 has failed the course once and is retaking it; feels incompetent; finds the material alienating but really wants to do better this time.
  • Student 4 is quiet and well-behaved in class but disengaged; written assignments indicate a lack of absorption of the material.
  • Student 5 has an advanced musical background; feels ownership over the material; is used to getting good grades; doesn’t want to be the teacher’s pet and often hangs back from the discussion.
  • Student 6 is a good and well-behaved student; finds the material moderately interesting; participates occasionally; is mostly concerned about getting a good grade.

Please feel free to add any types that we've omitted!

During the teaching simulation, we may ask participants to consider the following from the perspective of the above student types:

  • How was the pacing?
  • Was it an appropriate amount of material, given the subtopic for the twenty minutes as well as the topic for the entire class meeting?
  • Which parts were particularly helpful?
  • Which parts were particularly interesting?
  • Which parts were confusing?
  • Which parts were boring?
  • Did the teacher seem accessible?
  • Did the teacher seem engaging/charismatic/inspiring?
  • Did the teacher seem offensive or off-putting?

Teaching Workshop Videos

Go to Stanford Box for teaching video downloads.

Teaching Workshop Reflection

After the workshop, watch the video of your presentation (posted at the link above). Based on that viewing and the feedback you received from the other participants at the training, write a 300-400 word reflection. You might consider the following to guide your response:

  • How did you feel as a “student” watching your own presentation? What stood out to you about your own presentation style? Were you surprised by anything?
  • What patterns do you see in the participant feedback? Do these align with your personal reactions to watching the video? What might account for gaps between the participant and personal reactions, if any?
  • How do you see best pedagogical practices emerging in your teaching (i.e. what are you already doing that is productive and useful)? Which of these would you like to focus on moving forward, and/or which teaching methods would you like to experiment with adding to your practice?
  • Describe 2-3 goals you have for your TA experience in the fall/next academic year. What are some steps you plan to take to achieve those goals?

Due Date: Fri, May 24.

Additional Recommended Resources

John Dewey, Experience and Education, originally published 1938. Full text available online & via SUL.

Claude Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, 2010. Available via SUL.

bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, 1994. Full text available online & via SUL.

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