So much truth here. Especially the fact that you cared.
As someone who had his share of poor TAs and was a TA, caring is what sets apart the good teachers from the poor ones. Taking the time to sit and figure out the fundamental misunderstanding and then a good way around it is essential. It may look obvious to you, but the other person is obviously lost. The only way to solve that isn't by special power or teaching acumen, but taking time to figure out the core problem.
Aptly, it often involves debugging the person! Figure out where the chain of thought broke down!
Yes, very much. It requires a deep understanding of the material, empathy, and abstract thinking.
You need a deep understanding of the material, obviously. You need to have a model of the correct thing in your head. The empathy bit comes in from first caring, but also being able to quiz the student's understanding so you can start to understand what the (incorrect) model is in their head.
Then you need to figure out how to build a bridge between their model, and the correct one. And you may need to build multiple bridges if the first one doesn't take.
As someone who had his share of poor TAs and was a TA, caring is what sets apart the good teachers from the poor ones. Taking the time to sit and figure out the fundamental misunderstanding and then a good way around it is essential. It may look obvious to you, but the other person is obviously lost. The only way to solve that isn't by special power or teaching acumen, but taking time to figure out the core problem.
Aptly, it often involves debugging the person! Figure out where the chain of thought broke down!
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