This semester has been a wonderful lesson in developing asynchronous content for my students. My previous experiences as a UTA for various subjects centered entirely around in-person instruction, helping people in class or in office hours. This time, my project forced me to think about how to teach concepts through the page. I have always…
Category: Chancellor’s Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship
Final Bows as a TA
As I gear up for my finals, I realize I’m studying differently. There’s a certain ease to understanding the structure of my classes that I honestly had never felt before I was a teaching assistant and had to construct my own class this semester. My understanding of teaching went through an evolution over the semester….
Lighting the Way for Future Semesters: End of CUTF
The CUTF semester is coming to a close! This semester has taught me so much, especially about how hard our teachers work to help further our learning. I have spent countless hours designing my model, let alone printing and gluing together all 40 sets of the model, on top of writing the in-class activity that…
The Final Stretch of My CUTF Experience
After an eventful fall semester, my CUTF experience is coming to a culmination. Hi, my name is Nehal Chakraborty and I am a senior neuroscience major. Over the past semester, I worked with Dr. Linda O’Reilly as an undergraduate teaching assistant for her Foundations of Biology 1 class. As a UTA, I helped students through…
Learning through Teaching
It is already halfway through the semester! I have greatly enjoyed my experiences this semester as an undergraduate teaching assistant for organic chemistry. I have learned so much that can help me become a better instructor and facilitator in the future. I have been an organic chemistry teaching assistant for the past six semesters. After…
The “Big Ideas” of Teaching
Teaching CMPINF 0010: Big Ideas in Computing and Information this Fall is both similar and different to last Spring. The largest deviation from last semester is the change in student population: most students taking the course in the Fall are freshmen, while those in the Spring tend to be upperclassmen. Although this has positively affected…
Learning as a UTA
Hello everyone! My name is Nehal Chakraborty and I am a senior neuroscience major on the pre-medicine track. Through CUTF, I’m working on a project to create learning materials for Foundations Biology 1 students. I am currently working as a UTA under the guidance of Dr. Linda O’Reilly and creating review materials to help students…
Curtain Rise, Class in Session
I clearly remember the day I came up with my project topic. Or, to be more accurate, the night I came up with my project topic. Not everyone my age actively listens to opera. But I was brought up in a very classically musical household, and I still thoroughly enjoy it. After moving to Pittsburgh…
Learning Through Teaching
This fellowship experience is not my first time working with Dr. Barry. In fact, I’ve been his TA twice before, once for this same class (Statics) and once for Introduction to Thermodynamics. Before ever working with Dr. Barry, I was his student in Statics and then again the following spring in both Thermo and Circuits….
CUTF Introduction: Griffin Hurt
Last fall, I started my education at the University of Pittsburgh pursuing a degree in computer science, and one of the first courses I took was CMPINF 0010: Big Ideas in Computing and Information. The course is a general education requirement in the School of Computing and Information and centers around some of the overarching…