🙋 How to get the best results when asking a question

How do TA and a student work together to help the student solve a problem?

One of the reason why academic degrees are so respected is that they teach you problem solving skills. The actual techniques that you learn tend to be less helpful than the skills that you learn regarding how to solve problems. Therefore, I’m not able to simply “give someone the answer” or to tell them how to answer specific questions.

But don’t worry! If we work together, I can help you to solve the problem, and I will always keep working with you until you have reached the solution. The key is that the student must do the main work - I’m just here to get you over specific stumbling blocks.

However, I can teach you the subject matter of the course. I can answer any general or conceptual question about the material covered in lectures. I can also give you techniques to solve specific classes of questions.

Given these limitations, when you are stuck on a homework problem, then, the key thing is finding a way for us to work together where I give you just the help that you need to overcome the specific troubles that you are having with a problem. Your goal is to ask your question in a way that demonstrates that you are seriously engaging with the material, so that I know that you are the active party in the problem solving process.

The most important component: a specific conceptual question

The main most important thing in a request for help is a specific question that demonstrates that you have attempted to solve the question independently.

Some questions are about how to interpret the question. I love these!

Many of the best questions are conceptual - there is something that you haven’t understood about the concepts being tested in the question or about how to apply them.

Finally, if you don’t have a specific question and are simply stuck, just describe the steps you have taken so far and explain the specific problem that you are facing. Demonstrate that you have looked through your lecture notes and the slides so that you can bring the relevant ideas, examples, and concepts to bear on the problem you are trying to solve. If you do this, I can always help you get to the solution of the problem.

The second thing I need: context!

Sometimes, I won’t understand exactly what you are asking, so sometimes it is helpful to send me the problem your question is relevant to privately in either the chat room (as a private message) or via email.

When to mention a problem number

As mentioned above, it’s always good to mention the problem number via a private medium such as email or a private message. However, it’s usually best to not mention the question number in the chat room or out loud during section. The reason for this is that if a question isn’t mentioned, then I can fairly directly teach a concept or skill. However, if the question is mentioned, then my ability to do so is far more limited because each student should have the experience of analyzing the question independently and formulating their own solution.