Professor Peter Kramer, who is teaching Introduction to Differential Equations for the first time at RPI this semester, has four sections and two “half-teaching assistants,” TAs that each work half-time, or ten hours per week.

“I was told that there used to be two recitations for each student, and my teaching assistants (who are experienced) tell me those two recitations were very useful for the students,” said Kramer. “We are a little concerned about how well the students will learn the material with only one recitation hour per week.”

Keeping track of students’ progress is a major concern for Kramer, who feels more TAs would benefit his students. “If I had enough teaching assistants or graders, I would have weekly assignments and/or quizzes to provide the students with the regular feedback. However, as it is, I am encouraging the students to be self-motivated with the homework, check their work against the solutions, and ask questions during office hours,” Kramer explained.

“About five years ago, Introduction to Differential Equations and Introduction to Discrete Structures both had three hours of lecture and one hour of recitation/lab,” said Donald A. Drew via e-mail, chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences. “At the time, the department decided to add an extra contact hour for each of these courses. This was implemented for Introduction to Differential Equations, but not for Introduction to Discrete Structures.”

The change to the differential equations course was a short-lived change, as it has now been reduced to one recitation per week as well. “When the graduate tuition policy was put into place, it became clear that the Department of Mathematical Sciences would have fewer TAs. One place where some ‘economies’ could be made were in these courses,” continued Drew.

Professor Gregor Kovacic, who also teaches Introduction to Differential Equations, only has one teaching assistant for his four sections. As a result, he decided there would be no graded homework or quizzes because of the time limitations imposed by the teaching assistants’ job contracts of ten hours per week. He remembered when it was “…standard to have two teaching assistants and an undergraduate grader,” and added, “The shortage seems to be due to the graduate tuition policy.” Kramer, fairly new to the Institute said, “I followed Dr. Kovacic’s suggestion that there be no graded homework or quizzes because there is not enough staff to grade problems on a weekly basis.” Instead, he bases their grade “…purely by their performance on three exams plus a final.”

While professors like Kramer and Kovacic are pushing students in their classes to be self-motivated and work on material outside of the four class hours per week, they still have their reservations. “I have some concern that…students will not maintain the discipline of keeping up until they face the exams and may be very unpleasantly surprised with the assessment of their performance,” said Kramer.

Despite the structuring of classes like Introduction to Differential Equations being altered, Kramer points out, “I think the more serious concern is that we can only support one recitation hour for each student per week, because the class covers a lot of material quickly and I would certainly like for the students to have more recitation time to absorb and engage with the material interactively.”

Students, however, are split on the issue. Mike Kaufman ’08, a student in one of the affected Introduction to Differential Equations classes, said, “I don’t think the material covered in Introduction to Differential Equations is too difficult, but I think the recitation periods are invaluable to understanding it. Sometimes, professors can be hard to follow, and with something like math if you don’t understand one concept, none of the rest will follow.”

Renzo Lombardozzi ’07 feels that having only one recitation session might hurt him in the long run when taking Introduction to Differential Equations this semester. “The TA seems very helpful; he takes questions and explains some of the more difficult topics in detail.” But Lombardozzi doesn’t feel one recitation is nearly enough. “As it is, we go over a few homework problems that take up [to] 30 minutes. Then it’s a struggle to use up the rest of the time since there’s nothing set to discuss. The time would be better spent reviewing lectures and the material covered there—one recitation per lecture—so you have the material introduced by the professor and then clarified by the TAs.”

Rebecca Lamb ’05, a Physics major, has been a teaching assistant since her second semester at RPI, serving as a TA for both Physics I and Physics II. She was almost forced to give up her position as a teaching assistant when she was told that there were no funds available for undergraduate TAs this semester. “I emailed both course coordinators [for Physics I and Physics II]. The Physics I course coordinator quickly replied with, ‘The Physics Department does not have any funds available for undergrad TAs this semester. We are going to try to make due with grad TAs only.’ A week later, the Physics II course coordinator replied, ‘I did not answer sooner because it was not clear that we would have funds to hire undergraduate TAs.’”

There were funds available to hire Lamb as an undergraduate Physics II TA, even though she was seeking to TA both Physics I and Physics II. “I have not heard why there is a funding problem for Physics TAs this semester. However, nearly every semester there has been some doubt that the department could afford TAs,” Lamb continued.