Re: If you only had 75 minutes

[tarversj@winthrop.edu (JO KOSTER TARVERS)]

WINTHROP UNIVERSITY                               Electronic Mail Message

                                        Date:     03-Nov-1997 12:23pm EST 
                                        From:     Josephine K. Tarvers
                                                  TARVERSJ
                                        Dept:     English
                                        Tel No:   (803) 323-4557

TO:  Remote Addressee                     ( _smtp%"wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu" )

Subject: RE: If you only had 75 minutes

Katie,

Well, if that's all the time I had, I'd tell them to buy my book :-) and read 
it. 

No, really. One thing I've found very useful for working with TAs is to use the 
distinction made by John Passmore in his wonderful book _The Philosophy of 
Teaching_ between closed and open competencies, and narrow and broad 
competencies. It's an excellent way to help beginning teachers distinguish 
between the things we can teach/measure and the things we can provide 
opportunities for students to do but only hope they achieve on their own. I've 
found that many TAs, who tend to be linguistically facile and able to make quick 
cognitive leaps, forget that the students on the other side of the desk may lack 
those verbal skills and gymnastic abilities. Passmore breaks the process down 
quite usefully. 

The other "quick trick" I give out is Bob Bain's (rest in peace) "Framework for 
Judging", which appeared in original form in _CCC_ 25 (1974): 307-309 [his much 
revised version is also in my book]. It's a heuristic for beginning a 
conversation with a writer about a paper, and it's phrased in terms that I've 
found very useful for working with TAs.

Feel free to steal either or both...let us know what you eventually come up 
with!

All best,

Jo