TA - ing

What Peiyan says about TA (Teaching Assistant) work is true. You can get rather amusing answers from students sometimes.

For example, in one of my Biology 1A classes, the students were asked to observe cells in a microscope, and to calculate the size of these cells. Later, they were asked to compare the size of their cells to the size given in the textbook, and to explain why they may be different.

Most of them gave the usual answer : human error, problems with calibration, miscalculations etc...

One student wrote :
'... we may need to have our eyesight checked...'

*laugh* But it was true and made sense, so I gave him the mark, and spent the rest of the night grinning as I marked the rest of the class. Was tempted to write 'I see...' but thought better of it. :)


Another question was : List 5 differences between animal cells and prokaryotic (bacterial) cells?

One student wrote :
'... animal cells have a nucleus, while prokaryotic cells do not. The reason for this is not known, it is one of the fundamental questions in Biology...'

Hmm... we have a potential philosopher here... :)


So far, I've been taking longer than the time allocated for marking their lab books, but hopefully that'll improve with experience. Just need to make sure I don't compromise on the time needed for my own labwork and experiments. However, it's providing an interesting and refreshing change in my working environment, and I find myself looking forward to each weekly practical and tutorial session.

And I do my marking in front of the television, a habit I picked up from Mum. (Shhh... you never heard that from me ;) That way, I wouldn't feel so guilty watching 'House, M.D.'. Maybe that's why it's taking longer than expected to mark everything... :)