TAs are required to have student evaluations when they teach an independent section. The course type is "Face-to-Face." (A "Hybrid" course would have a substantial fraction of instruction delivered on-line rather than in the classroom. Using WebAssign, on-line quizzes, or a few on-line resources is not enough.) Form type A or D is probably most appropriate for 300 level courses. These two forms differ only in questions 6, 11, and 13: Form A asks about clarity of voice, student confidence in your knowledge, and encouragement of student expression, while D asks about sequential presentation of concepts, contribution of assignments to understanding, and your ability deal with student difficulties. (Forms B and F and perhaps C are sometimes used in math classes. Form B is designed for large lectures, F for quiz sections, and C for seminars where most of the class time is spent in discussion.)
When you hand out the student evaluation forms, be sure to explain that students should mark the course as "in your major" (or minor) only if they are math majors (or minors). If they are in another major which requires this course, the correct label is "program requirement." How the students answer this question affects the "adjustments" made to the medians for the first four questions, and the medians for these questions are considered when either your teaching or the department's teaching is evaluated. More information about the adjustments.
When teaching your own course, you should consider your likely future need of a teaching letter of recommendation. It can easily happen that when you need the letter, you aren't in the classroom at all (for instance if you've chosen the MSC for more flexibility for travel, or are the Lead TA). So think about this now.
The ideal person to write that letter is someone who has knowledge of your teaching in more than one context. If there is a professor who you think appreciated your work as a TA in their calculus course, who observed you when you taught your own section of another (100 or 300 level) course, who has heard you give good seminar talks, or with whom you've discussed teaching issues, consider inviting them to observe you this quarter. Or if there is a professor whose teaching you admire, you might start cultivating them as a "teaching mentor" by asking if they would observe you this quarter and perhaps in future quarters, then write you a teaching letter of recommendation.
If the suggestions above don't work, you can ask the course coordinator for your course or a member of the TA Advisory Committee to observe you and write a letter.
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Index for the 3xx Instructor Guide.
Most recently updated on May 9, 2013