Standing in front of a room (or a Zoom grid) of students who are seeing an idea for the first time changes how you understand it yourself. That’s the part of teaching at the University of Toronto I want to capture here.
The role
I was a [TA / course instructor / lab demonstrator] for [course code and name, e.g. CSC148: Introduction to Computer Science] at the University of Toronto during [term and year, e.g. Fall 2022]. The course was run by [professor / course coordinator] and enrolled roughly [number] students across [number] sections.
My responsibilities included:
- Leading [weekly tutorials / lab sections / office hours] for [number] students.
- Grading [assignments / midterms / projects] and giving written feedback.
- Holding office hours and answering questions on [Piazza / Quercus / forum].
- [Any other duties — designing problem sets, proctoring, holding review sessions].
What I taught
The core topics I covered were [list main topics, e.g. recursion, data structures, complexity analysis]. I tried to focus on [your teaching emphasis — intuition over memorization, debugging skills, etc.].
| Component | What I did | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Tutorials | [topic / format] | [number] students |
| Grading | [assignments / exams] | [number] submissions |
| Office hours | [in-person / online] | [hours per week] |
What I learned
Teaching forced me to [insight — explain things from first principles, slow down, find concrete examples]. The most common place students got stuck was [topic / misconception], and I learned to address it by [your approach].
The biggest lesson: [your main takeaway about teaching, mentorship, or communication].
Outcomes
- Received [teaching feedback / evaluation score / award] of [detail].
- [Any notable outcome — students’ results, materials you created, repeat appointment].
Every bracketed item above is a placeholder — replace with the real course, term, and details.