Throughout this internship course, I provided assistance for the teaching assistant and was able to teach two of the lab subjects: Environmental Microscopy and Aquatic Ecology: Abiotic Components. My duties for assisting mainly involved answering student questions, supervising quizzes and tests to prevent cheating, assisting in lab techniques, and checking off students’ completed workbooks.
In both of my sections for labs, the students in the courses were a wide mix of majors but mostly sophomores and juniors who already had experience with both lecture and laboratory classes. In both of the two labs I taught, I used both lecture and laboratory portions to divide the class time. This ended up being mostly laboratory time for the students to work through, and only fifteen to twenty minutes of myself lecturing. I felt that it was important to try and not keep the students from their work for too long, but I also wanted to give necessary background information that was relevant and also interesting.
During these two labs, I taught the lecture, demonstrated the tools and instruments, assisted students around the class, asked and answered questions, checked students’ completed workbooks, and had the students draw up conclusions about the day’s subject. From the duties of this course, I have seen the requirements of excellent teaching. It requires a multitude of abilities, such as micromanaging, advanced planning, patience, and although being a teacher, still wanting to learn more about the subject.
