While being a UTA for Dr. Meca’s Lifespan Development course, I attended classes as if I were an ordinary student which involved me in participating in classroom discussions, journals, etc. Skills that are effective for students are to listen attentively as the teacher lectures and try to relate them to yourself to better understand concepts. Another great skill would be to jot down key topics to be able to reflect on them later from memory retrieval or by researching later.

However, I believe students learn best by engagement between classmates while the teacher facilitates it as the teacher asks for thoughts and concerns because it allows teacher-student interaction while it also engages students to think: whether they actively participate in the discussion or not. With Dr. Meca’s enthusiasm about many concepts that were covered throughout the course he generally asked simple questions. For example, some statements would be along the line of “has anyone experienced this before?” and then would ask “well why is that?” or “why do you think that is?” which made individuals open up to elaborate on topics. While grading the class’s daily “ticket-outs”, responses from their prompt would be well written and thought out as they had opportunities to discuss the broader topic as a class. 

From grading papers and noticing individuals who attended class, most individuals who attended class possessed higher grades as in-class assignments can add up fast! Therefore, class participation is actually valuable.  

A Good Note to Never Forget: Putting in effort can go a long way as well as asking the professor for clarification on assignments…