Useful Teaching Resources
There are a handful of books and websites that I highly recommend to any- and everyone who wants to become a good teacher. The following resources cover everything from basic classroom management, to the specifics of TAing at UCSC, and everything in between.
- Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College by Doug Lemov.
Though this book was written specifically for K-12 educators, I employ many of its techniques every time I stand in front of a class, regardless of how young or old my students are. All of the techniques discussed in the book came from a concerted, evidence-based, well-documented investigation into what really good teachers actually do in their classrooms, and why their strategies work. The book comes with a DVD showing real teachers using each of the book's techniques in a real classroom, which is an amazing resource in and of itself.
- The Torch or The Firehose: A Guide to Section Teaching by Arthur P. Mattuck
Written by one of MIT's best professors, this booklet (available as a free download at the included link) delves into the details how, exactly, the average grad student should go about leading sections for math-based, college-level courses. The chapter on boardwork techniques alone is worth its weight in gold.
- UCSC Astronomy Grad Student TA Resources
Although it's designed primarily for UCSC graduate student TAs, this website contains stuff that many college-level instructors may find useful. The links to grad-student-created section lesson plans, handouts, teaching tips, and diagnostic test are especially fantastic.
- MIT OpenCourseWare
Access all of MIT's undergrad and graduate courses online for free. The course materials are regularly updated, and are published under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license. You can watch lectures, find problem sets (and sometimes their solutions!), tests, review materials, reading lists, lecture slides, etc. Full disclosure: I worked for MIT OCW as a professional badgerer-of-physics-and-math-professors for a year after college. (That turns out to be an extremely useful skill to have in grad school!) It was an even more awesome job than you probably think it was.