Grad students discuss dealing with Penn kids

And you thought excuses like "the dog ate my homework" stopped in high school.

According to a Center for Teaching and Learning discussion, being faced with lame attempts to get out of work is just one of the challenges teaching assistants face at Penn.

The session given in Van Pelt Library yesterday - called "Dealing with Penn Students" - was designed for graduate students to discuss challenges in managing relationships with Penn undergraduates. It touched on issues from grading to classroom dynamics to interpersonal problems.

This workshop was part of the series called "Navigating the Classroom," intended to prepare graduate students for teaching at the University.

According to Management graduate fellow Andrew Knight, who led the session, TAs face the potential pitfalls of grading arguments, problems with struggling students and group-project complaints.

"Many people think you don't know anything outside the bubble of your classroom," Knight said.

Excuses abound when students become stretched for time at the end of the semester, he said, and TAs are often placed in tough positions when professors demand proof to allow absences or missed work.

Most of the teaching assistants in attendance said they treat deaths differently than other excuses, but major illnesses require proof.

Knight said that when the time comes for students to decide if they need to drop a class, students are certain to come to their TAs in tears.

He added that it is difficult to say how involved the TA should get in situations where a student is failing a class and how to recommend that they withdraw.

In general, the TAs agreed that advising students to switch majors and withdraw should be left to the students' professors or advisers. Knight said TAs could give suggestions for what they would do were they in the students' place or a resource center to try.

The last source of classroom drama that was discussed was the group project.

In many cases, the TAs said, either one or two people do all the work or are forced to suffer with a bad project because the other students in the group are not on the same level.

The consensus was that the TA should do the best they could to create an environment for the group to come together as well as to mediate the discussion of who will do what for the project.

"Students at Penn are under a lot of pressure from their family to do well. People are incredible in how they think here," Knight said.

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