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Standing in front of a room of students who are seeing an idea for the first time changes how you understand it yourself. That is the part of teaching at the University of Toronto I want to capture here.
The role
I was a teaching assistant for an introductory computer science course at the University of Toronto for one term. The course was run by a faculty coordinator and enrolled a large first-year cohort across several sections.
My responsibilities included:
- Leading weekly tutorials for my section.
- Grading assignments and writing feedback.
- Holding office hours and answering questions on the course forum.
What I taught
The core topics were recursion and basic data structures. I tried to focus on intuition rather than memorization.
| Component | What I did | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Tutorials | weekly, in person | one section |
| Grading | assignments and the midterm | many submissions |
| Office hours | in person | a few hours a week |
What I learned
Teaching forced me to explain things from first principles, which showed me the gaps in my own understanding. Students got stuck most often on recursion, and I learned to address it with a concrete trace on the board rather than another definition.
The biggest lesson was that a good example beats a good explanation almost every time.
Outcomes
- Solid feedback from students at the end of the term.
- A set of tutorial materials that I handed off for the next offering.