Assignment 3- Julie Bai

I am a teaching TA for a class this semester. The goal for section TAs is to review lecture materials for students and to give them short hands-on assignment during section to prepare for big class projects.

Memory for section materials is represented in many ways. As a procedure, once a week, teaching TAs meet together and has exposure to the new section material developed by one of the teaching TAs. This helps teaching TAs to grasp what to teach for that week's section and to prepare teaching the section. Section TA meetings are also a verification activity that allows the professor to check the section material before it gets handed out, and discuss with other TAs how to improve it

Also, the lectures that TAs are required to attend, aid TAs to follow up with what students are learning, and serve as representation of section materials. The class website is a long term memory or a resource for teaching TAs to go over lecture materials.

Memories of section TAs are indirect observable representations of section materials that organize many forms of representations that were discussed and further transform them for teaching. The content refreshed and relearned in lectures, TA meetings, and their past experience related to the material all help when section TAs teach students.

Other cognitive resources include the wiki for TAs, Internet, and other TAs. With the wiki, the section TA do not have to remember what to do next while teaching the section. He or she simply looks at the wiki to see if they covered the material and what to cover next. A complex teaching task is transformed into a checklist of things to cover, and reduces requirements for scarce cognitive resources. Information on the Internet helps TAs to look up information and answer students' questions when they do not know the answers. Interactions with TAs during section may reinforce the sectional material and help to transform them verbally. For example, listening to the other section TA teaching a section or asking TAs questions about section material may reorganize the verbal representations and how to work with section assignments.

Teaching TAs are involved with loosely coupled, moderately coupled, and tightly coupled tasks. Weekly meetings would be considered loosely and moderately coupled. The section material is exposed to section TAs, but does not necessarily need immediate response or improvement. Other TAs can improve the materials in their own free time, and update it on the wiki. However, coordination of tasks are determined at the meetings.

TAs are involved with tightly coupled tasks when approaching the deadline to prepare section materials and teaching the section on Fridays. Answering students' questions need almost immediate responses and require clarification or persuasion.