There will always be that one student who just doesn't understand question five.
Fifty minutes later, the frustration in the classroom is palpable, recitation is over, and the teaching assistant has yet to explain the answer thoroughly.
It's a problem that is troubling - and all too familiar - to the undergraduate population: A lack of communication between TAs and students.
And so the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education is trying to nip the problem right in the bud.
This fall marks the kick-off of the Action, Communication and Evaluation program, a SCUE initiative to combat the classic bad recitation.
In August, ACE - originally proposed by College and Engineering sophomore Sarah Doherty last spring - put together simulated recitations, acted out by undergraduates at a training session for 150 new TAs.
ACE partnered with the Center for Teaching and Learning, which manages TA training for the College, to execute three skits that represented good and bad recitations for three scenarios: a humanities course, a quantitative course and a general student-TA relationship.
There is currently no College-wide system for evaluating TAs, but some departments have developed their own methods, like passing out TA evaluation forms along with professor evaluation forms at the end of each semester.
And while ACE refrains from telling TAs exactly how to present their material, they have some suggestions that may alleviate recitation problems.
"We're not in a position to say this is how you should teach," said College senior Eric Schwartz, vice-chairman of SCUE, "but we are in a position to say this is how we learn best."
Students are "experts in how they learn," added Bruce Lenthall, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning.
The undergraduate perspective is highly valued by TAs, who often miss out on student feedback, Doherty said. It's important to know that TAs "really do care about student thoughts and concerns."
School of Arts and Science graduate student Erin Cohn, a TA in the History department, was glad to include undergraduates in TA training because they demonstrated what "styles of recitation work best for students."
College senior and SCUE chairwoman Elizabeth Slavitt defined a "good recitation" as one that "gives a student, who is otherwise sitting in a big lecture hall, the opportunity to engage in the material."
Cohn is hopeful that, for the sake of both students and TAs, they will continue communicating on "issues of teaching and learning."
ACE is planning to facilitate that communication as it expands to include mid- and end-of-the-semester TA evaluations, greater communication between TAs and professors and support for departments to hire TAs earlier in the year so that they can receive more training.
It's a solution that's been a long time coming because "just as professors and graduate students are at the cutting edge of content," Schwartz said, "they should be at the cutting edge of teaching methods."
