I had the opportunity to co teach a first-year seminar course this past semester as a graduate student. The course was focused on community building and developing intercultural communication competencies and had 30 lower division undergraduate engineering students. The course ends with a two week study abroad experience, so during the semester it is important for students to get several opportunities to get to know each other and build community. Here, I offer a reflection on what I learned this semester teaching this course with another graduate student and an undergraduate advisor. Since I have never even been a Teaching Assistant (TA) before, it was my first time teaching. For the first time at a college level, I developed materials, a course schedule, and in-class activities and led a course once a week. 

Since this course only meets once a week for 50 minutes, teaching this course was a way for me to dip my toes into the teaching waters before fully immersing myself. Even though it was a light lift, in comparison to an instructor’s typical teaching load, it was still full of many lessons. 

Here are five things I learned from leading this course for one semester:

• Knowing everyone’s name had a lot of unintended benefits

• Students miss a lot of intangible learning when they miss class

• Students will be late to class 

• Every activity takes longer than you think it will

• It can be hard to react effectively in the moment to address microaggressions

1. Knowing everyone’s name had a lot of unintended benefits

I was adamant early on with my co-instructors that we needed to prioritize learning students' names. I figured knowing their names would not only help during the semester, but would be especially useful when we had to keep track of them while abroad. What I did not realize initially was that there are several unintended benefits with knowing your students' names. These include quickly identifying who is missing from class or hasn’t submitted an assignment, being able to assign students to strategic small groups ahead of class time based on your goals for the activity, and most importantly, fostering a community. We as instructors prioritized learning students’ names, which also meant that students learned each other’s names. Students knowing each other's names really opened up opportunities for students to build relationships with each other. 

We utilized two main strategies to quickly learn students' names at the beginning of the semester. First, we played a name game on the first day of class which required all students to say their names and classmates’ names. Then, we also asked students to make name tents on the first day of class with the first name and pronouns. We gave students their name tents to put up in front of them every week of the semester. With these two strategies, I learned all students' names within the first three weeks of the course. And I can confidently say, the whole semester went smoother because I knew their names and was confident about it.       

2. Students miss a lot of intangible learning when they miss class

As a former engineering student, I already knew that missing class meant that I was missing foundational material introduced in class. However, what I only realized this semester is that missing classes that include teaching methods beyond lecture means that you are missing out on more than just technical content. In our course, we did a lot of small group activities where students were encouraged to get to know each other. We also practiced things that we knew would be useful while traveling abroad like quickly assembling to take a group picture, counting off to take stock of the entire group quickly, and getting quiet fast. Students who missed these types of activities because they missed class for whatever reason, missed out on community building opportunities and practical information. 

Obviously, we as educators cannot expect that all students can make it to every class, but we can ensure that we provide an engaging enough class that students choose to show up rather than prioritizing other things. Basically, what I realized is that my students should view my class as valuable enough to be in that they make it a priority to show up.  Otherwise, if they don’t think being in class will be any different than them not being there, they won’t be inclined to show up. And students not coming to class can impact the whole group, especially when you pre arrange groups for in class activities and want students to have equal opportunity to get to know each other. 

3. Students will be late to class

Similar to accepting that students will miss some class, it is also important to accept that students will also show up to class late. They have a million things going on, and some of them will walk in upwards of 5-10 minutes late. We had up to one fourth of our class walking in late by the end of the semester and it wasn’t always the same students. Given this reality that a non-trivial number of students may show up a little late, it is important to be strategic about how you start class. 

What I realized is that we should start class on time, but be cautious about presenting the most valuable information within the first few minutes. Students are more likely to walk in late than they are to leave early, so we set the schedule such that things we needed all students present for happened later on in the class. We typically started the class with announcements that students could miss, group activities in the middle, and important information all students needed at the end of class. Following this approach meant that we received a lot fewer emails and questions after class from students who joined the class a few minutes late. 

4. Every activity takes longer than you think it will

Activities take a lot longer than I anticipated. This one is probably pretty obvious to well-seasoned educators, but it took me more than half of the semester to accept this reality. I realized that 50 minutes goes by in the blink of an eye if we did anything beyond lecturing, and we rarely lectured. 

The main reason things take longer than you expect is that a lot of time is lost in transition. One activity that requires students to get into pre-assigned small groups can easily take 30 minutes. For example, explaining instructions takes up to five minutes, incorporating technology takes up to five minutes, and students moving around the classroom can take up to five minutes. With those three factors alone, now students have only 15 minutes to do the activity you allotted 30 minutes for. Therefore, I learned that it is important to plan to do only one or two activities in a 50 minute class period. Whenever we did two activities, it felt like we were speeding through them, so one activity is really ideal. That way students are engaged without feeling rushed.  

5. It can be hard to react effectively in the moment to address microaggressions

Finally, the hardest lesson I learned this semester was that no amount of research expertise on diversity, equity, and inclusion could have prepared me to effectively tackle microaggressions in the classroom. The thing that surprised me the most was that recognizing an issue is not enough; as an educator, you must also react immediately. Yes, knowing what to look for is helpful; however, with so many things happening at once, and students making comments to each other at lightning pace, I found it more challenging than I expected to step in at the right time and say the right thing. Sometimes, I didn’t even realize a microaggression towards a student happened until it was hours after class ended. For me, accepting the reality that microaggressions will likely happen in my classroom and I won’t catch all of them means that I have to be willing to called out by students if I slip, I have to be willing to hear students out if they brings things up that I missed, and that a public mistake warrants a public apology. 

While there were not too many instances of discrimination or oppression in our course this semester, enough happened that led me to reflect on how I could be better prepared moving forward. What I’ve realized so far is that saying something is better than saying nothing because saying something signals to students that you care enough to acknowledge a potentially challenging situation. 

Teaching in a lot of ways in an activity that requires years of trial and error. After my first semester, I feel confident that my second semester of college teaching will be easier than my first as I have now had the chance to try out some things and make some mistakes.