“Golden Apple” Outstanding TA Award
I was honoured to receive the Outstanding TA Award for CSS last week. For reasons pictured in the photo below, the award has been come to be known as the “Golden Apple” award. There was a nice luncheon for the TAs from across the departments, where I was proud to find that many of my friends were receiving awards as well. After TAing Intro to Soil Science, Intro Biology, Sustainable Agriculture, and Soil Ecology (twice), I’ve had quite a range of experience. It’s very interesting how different one TAship can be from the next. Would you rather TA two or three identical sections each week, with relatively little prep work (as in larger classes with other support staff), or teach only one lab, but with much more time spent preparing for it (as in smaller classes, where you are the only TA)? In the first scenario, you get insight into what a “well-oiled-machine” class looks like and have lots of support, while in the second scenario, you may learn more about running the lab yourself, and have more independence.
