Mathematics is one of the most important foundations of a tech school. However, the Stevens department dedicated to this subject has at times had trouble connecting with students. To address this, a few promising undergraduates have joined the staff this semester as teaching assistants. Devin M. Dragon, Elena Malova, and Kenny Rexer will all be working alongside the more senior graduate teaching assistants in order to help students get the most out of their recitation time. Professor Mahmood Sohrabi is the course coordinator for MA 227 Multivariable Calculus and made the decision to supplement its recitations with undergraduates. He said that when he became the course coordinator, he wanted to change multivariable to be less about fundamentals and more about getting students engaged in the concepts and that adding the undergraduate teaching assistants was part of achieving this goal.
So far, the new teaching assistants seem to think that this approach is working. Dragon said that for multivariable calculus, “I can definitely say it’s beneficial. We work in pairs (grad student and undergrad TA) in the recitations and since it’s the fall the classes are smaller. It really helps to give one on one attention to students … It helps that he [Professor Sohrabi] makes recitation worth part of the [attendance] grade but doesn’t do the workshop style as in Calc 1 and 2 … I think the low-pressure environment helps.”
Sohrabi expressed the utmost support for the new hires, echoing Dragon’s assessment that having extra teaching assistants in the classroom who took the course more recently is extremely beneficial while teaching.
While he raised some concerns about finding funding for the extra teaching assistants, Sohrabi said he was “not optimizing resources but again this is, you know, optimizing my time with the students.” He went on to detail the difficulties in implementing a similar setup in a course such as MA 121 or MA 122, where there are as many as 17 recitation sections, but said that the goal is to continue using it in MA 227 for as long as funding allows.
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